


Past, Present, and Future

by Fightingandwriting



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Adopted Schuyler Sisters, Alternate Universe, Catholic Peggy, First fix probably shitty, Foster Care AU, Highschool AU, Jewish Eliza, Lams - Freeform, Multiculteral Schuyler Sisters!, Muslim Angelica, NB Laf, Not literally, Washingdad, accidental jamilton, also jeffmads sort of adopts alex, but yeah, how does one tag, it just sort of showed up, it's not supposed to be there, jeffmads - Freeform, like really alternate universe, lots of jeffmads, please ignore any jamilton, single washingdad, umm, until he starts dating martha
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-10
Updated: 2018-04-08
Packaged: 2018-09-23 05:40:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 48,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9643004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fightingandwriting/pseuds/Fightingandwriting
Summary: Alexander Hamilton has poor impulse control, a readiness to fight, and a past he'd prefer not to talk about.Thomas Jefferson and James Madison never planned on viewing Hamilton as anything other than an enemy.(Tjeffs and Hamilton are never a thing romantically--Thomas and James just worry about him)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So this is my first fic and...Here it goes! It probably sucks, but I'm posting it anyway, 'cause it's been sitting in my drive for two weeks and I want to.  
> I've proofread it a couple of times, and I *hope* the grammar is intact. However, I tried a bunch of different ways, but no matter what I do, a03 won't let me tab. If anyone has any advice, it would be greatly appreciated. Tabs are important.  
> First Chapter TWs: TRIGGER WARNING for a minor panic attack. Not detailed, but stay safe.  
> Also, so yeah, Alex has a panic in this chapter. I cannot claim to know what it's like, which is why a) it's not from his perspective, and b) I did do some research. Sources are cited at the bottom.

Thomas Jefferson was many things. Some were good, some were bad, asshole was most certainly among them. But he believed in things being fair. Of course he did, he wasn’t Charles Lee for god’s sake. And while his definition of ‘fair’ might have been different than Hamilton’s, something the other boy made sure to remind him of daily, he knew that this was most certainly not fair.

Because _goddamnit, Hamilton_ , the smaller boy wasn’t even bothering to defend himself. It wasn’t the first time they had fought; not even close. And it also wasn’t the first time things got physical. It, really, was just another Tuesday. They had argued during debate, as always, and when the bell released them, the argument had continued outside. And after yelling at each other about whatever it had been--Thomas thought it had been something about foreign affairs in Washington’s class, but by the time they got outside, it was really just the two of them insulting each other--after a few minutes, words hadn’t been strong enough, and then--ok, today Thomas had thrown the first punch. Today it was on him. But this happened at least three times a week, and in Thomas’s defense, it was almost always Hamilton who took the fight from verbal to physical. And yeah, Thomas would fight back, but could you blame him? Today, though, was different. Because usually they would go at it for a few minutes, until James decided enough was enough and pulled them apart. Usually, when that happened, they would be in pretty much the same condition; a couple of bruises, depending on how pissed they both were, but nothing serious. Always equally injured. And this was where Thomas’s belief in fairness came in, because when it came down to it, fights with Hamilton were undeniably fair. Thomas was taller than Hamilton, but Hamilton was a better fighter(not that Thomas would ever admit it). And--another thing Thomas would never admit aloud--He even almost trusted the black haired boy. It definitely depended on your definition of trust, and Thomas would argue that no matter what your definitions of trust was, he in no way felt it towards Hamilton. But, as Thomas wished he had never had to learn, Hamilton could keep a secret.

A couple weeks before, Hamilton had, through some very unfortunate circumstances, learned that Thomas and James were, well, more than friends. Or, as Hamilton had put it flatly,

“You two are making out in the empty debate classroom.”

It was not something Thomas would have chosen for anyone to find out. If he had had to choose someone, he probably would have picked James' six month old sister. Or his dog, Cheesepuff. Maybe he would have been alright with James’s hamster. But he would definitely not have picked Hamilton. Hamilton had walked in looking for Washington, presumably to complain about something(Thomas didn't know why Hamilton would have been complaining that day, but he was sure Hamilton could have found something). Thomas had, in common terms, flipped the fuck out. James had not been calmer. In their world, a small Virginian town, this was the end. That was that. They were fucked. They would have been fucked even if it hadn't been Hamilton, but had it been someone else, maybe Thomas could have convinced them to keep a secret. Because(Yet another thing Thomas would not have said aloud) Hamilton was right when it came to wealth; having it, and a powerful family, meant something. So had it been anyone but Hamilton, Thomas might have been able to convince them to keep quiet. But Hamilton didn't give a shit about getting on the bad side of a rich and powerful family; he had made it his business to get on everyone’s bad side as quickly as possible. So Thomas had no way to get him to be quiet(not that Hamilton necessarily knew the meaning of the word). And Hamilton hated him. That was that, everyone would know, world was over.

Except maybe it wasn't, because Hamilton had looked between their terrified faces and--

“Hey, I'm not that bad--” at which Thomas would have raised an eyebrow had the world not been ending--“I'm not going to tell anyone, how evil do you think I am?” Hamilton quirked a smile. “Everything would go to shit for you if I did, and I'd have no one to debate and fight after school.”  
It took a moment to register.

“What--why--wait what?” Thomas had said eloquently after he finally found his voice. Hamilton had rolled his eyes.

“I'm. Not. Going. To. Tell.” A pause, during which Thomas and James waited for the catch. Seeing their expectant looks, Hamilton once again rolled his eyes. “It's not out of any great affection for you two. I still think you guys are awful, and plan to kick Thomas’s ass in debate tomorrow. I'm also not going to tell anyone, because number one, I am not an ass(debateable, Thomas wanted to add), and number two, even though you guys are asses, you don't deserve it.” Hamilton seemed to think this over for a minute, before changing his mind. “Actually, you two do deserve it, but on principle, no one does, so I'm staying quiet.”

Finally finding his voice, James spoke up.  
“Thank you,” and Thomas knew he should thank Hamilton too, but he just couldn't. James gave him a pointed look.

“...Thanks.” He had muttered. Hamilton snorted.

“Well, I’d be lying if I said I expected better,” Surveying the room one last time, Hamilton turned towards the door to leave. He paused by the door.  
“Oh, and for fucks sake, next time find somewhere where I won’t walk in on you. The two of you kissing was not something I ever wanted to see, or would ever like to see again.” Shuddering, Hamilton had walked out, the door clicking shut behind him.

And, surprisingly, shockingly, amazingly, Hamilton had kept his word. He'd kept the secret for five weeks now, not telling anyone, at least as far as Thomas knew. And at some point, Thomas couldn't say when exactly, he'd stopped waiting for the shoe to drop. He'd stopped waiting for Hamilton to tell. As much as he didn't want to admit it, he trusted Hamilton, at least in one sense of the word.  
Not that he wasn’t able to hate Hamilton at the same time. No, he definitely disliked Hamilton. That wasn’t even a question. He definitely didn’t care about the other boy, definitely didn’t worry about the way Hamilton seemed smaller lately, like he wasn’t eating, or worry when Hamilton didn’t come to school for three days, finally showing up with no explanation, definitely didn’t worry about the way Hamilton would pour red bull into his coffee--That shit was going to kill him--no, he never worried about Hamilton, because worry implied care, and care implied--Actually, Thomas wasn’t quite sure what care implied. But it implied something other than dislike, Thomas was pretty sure. But anyway; Thomas. Didn’t. Care.  
But seeing Hamilton stop fighting was still fucking terrifying.

The black haired boy was curled up on the ground, not responding. A millisecond after the realization kicked in, he's not fighting back, James’s sharp voice cut through--

“Thomas--”  
_\--Because James felt the same way, he trusted Hamilton too, they both had somehow ended up caring for the small Caribbean boy, when the hell did that happen, when did we go from hating him to being worried about him--_

“I know,” Thomas replied curtly, stepping back from the boy on the ground in front of him. Thomas looked down at Hamilton. The other boy was curled up, arms wrapped around himself protectively. It was so out of character for him, to be lying on the ground like that. If it was anyone else, Thomas would have assumed it was a trick, that the Hamilton was trying to get Thomas to let down his guard so that he could attack again. But with Hamilton, that wouldn’t happen, because Hamilton believed in fair too, and fights with Hamilton were straightforward. Besides, when you know you’re going to be fighting someone the next day, too, and the day after that and after that, you don’t waste time with tricks. So for Hamilton to be curled up like that, not fighting back, making himself completely vulnerable--Something had to be wrong.  
Bending down towards Hamilton, Thomas gave James a worried look.

“Do you think I--” Thomas began, not quite sure how how to finish. James looked at him, than at Hamilton.

“This doesn’t seem like it’s your fault,” James responded slowly. Thomas nodded, not wanting to admit how much relief those words had brought him. He turned back to Hamilton.

Looking at the boy on the ground, it started to seem obvious that something was wrong. Hamilton had a black eye that Thomas was fairly certain he hadn’t put there--and Thomas felt strangely offended at that, that Hamilton had been fighting with someone else, because he and Hamilton fought, that was their whole thing. Hamilton clearly hadn’t been eating--beyond his usual “I can’t stop working for enough time to eat a sandwich”, no, this seemed more serious.

“Hey, can you hear me?” The answer seemed to be a yes, because while Hamilton didn't respond verbally, he did start to uncurl his body, and pull himself into an upright position. He looked up at Thomas, blinking twice in the cold January sunlight.  
“

Well, shit,” he said calmly. “What happened?”  
Thomas and James exchanged a glance. Hamilton looked back and forth between them.

“You and Thomas were fighting--” James started, and both Thomas and Hamilton could feel him holding back the “As always”.  
“You guys were fighting, and then you,” he turned to Hamilton, addressing him directly, “Stopped fighting back. Did you pass out, or what happened?”

Hamilton seemed to be putting the pieces together in his mind.  
“Something like that,” he said vaguely. James looked at him.

“Care to elaborate?”

“Nope,” Hamilton said. He pulled himself up, wincing. Thomas watched, thinking through what might have happened.

“Was it a panic attack?” He asked slowly. Hamilton blinked at him.

“What the hell would you know about that?” Thomas opened his mouth to speak, but Hamilton cut him off.

"I--just--not now, ok?” And then he picked up his backpack and ran to his bike, pedaling off out of sight.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something is wrong. Thomas and James just don't know what. Yet.  
> (Or--the chapter in which Hamilton acts unusually and Thomas and James worry some more)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is the second chapter! You guys gave my first chapter six(6! 3*2! 2*3! six!) bookmarks, t h i r t y fucking s e v en kudos, and comments! You guys gave me comments! So while I realize that to most people, this probably isn't impressive, but to me, it's everything. You guys read my writing, and liked it. Thank you so so much.
> 
> So, in the first chapter, I talked about Burr. I think I mentioned him as someone who occasionally broke up the fight between Hamilton and Thomas, and then again when Thomas was talking about who he would rather have found out about Jeffmads. So please disregard that. I've changed the first chapter and gotten rid of Burr, because I know who I want him to be now. And it's not that. I think he'll be making an appearance in the next chapter.
> 
> I don't think there are any TW's in this chapter. They are hinting at something potentially triggering, though, so I guess TRIGGER WARNING for implied/hinted at child abuse.

“Hamilton!” At the sound of Thomas’s voice, Alexander glanced up from the bike lock he had been fumbling with. Warily, he watched Thomas jog towards him.

 

“Why were you so quiet in debate today?” Thomas asked once he was within reasonable talking distance.

 

“What the hell are you talking about?”

 

“Debate class,” Thomas said impatiently. “I was going on and on about how we should take measures to keep illegal immigrants out, and you didn’t say anything!” He spoke indignantly, as though by not yelling at him, Alexander had done a moral wrong.

 

“You know, there are thirty kids in the class,” Alexander felt compelled to point out. Thomas looked at him blankly. “You know...Other people? Who might disagree with you? Reasonably, I might add, because who wouldn’t--”  _ Don’t go there _ , Alexander mentally chided himself.  _ Can’t handle a fight today _ . Thomas was still staring at him as though he had grown another head.(Which, incidentally, Alexander had always thought would be cool. More ears, more eyes, more space for thoughts. Always had seemed useful, extra heads. Anyway. This was probably what Aaron meant when he said that Alexander thought too much.)

 

“You never let that stop you before!” Thomas said, still in the same indignantly perplexed tone.  _ Yeah, because then, debating hadn’t taken more energy than Alexander had, and continuing the fight after school had been fun, not something terrifying.  _

 

“This might shock you, but things change. Actually, it definitely will shock, because you still seem in the year--”  _ Don’t. Start. A. Fight.  _ But damn, it was hard. Alexander hadn’t realized just how natural fighting with Thomas had become. Alexander became aware that Thomas was looking at him curiously.

 

“Why do you keep doing that?” Thomas demanded.

 

“Doing what?”

 

“Cutting yourself off like that, stopping before you insult me.” Who knew Thomas was this observant?   
  


“Take it as a reprieve; You’re getting some time off from constantly losing to my superior intellect. It won’t last.”  _ No, Alexander certainly wouldn’t last much longer like this.  _ Thomas still looked confused. “What?”

 

“I just...It’s not like you.”

 

“No, it’s not.” Both of them jumped at the new voice. James had come up behind Thomas, and was looking at Alexander expectantly.

 

“Why were you so quiet in debate today?” Apparently Thomas and James were one of those couples that were always on the same wavelength.

 

“Your boyfriend just asked me that,” Alexander said, rolling his eyes in a gesture that he didn’t feel. “Jesus, what is with you guys and worrying about me?” Said worriers exchanged a glance, but didn’t respond. Alexander turned back to his bike, unlocking it and pulling it away from the stand. “So if there’s nothing else, I’m out. This was a nice talk and all, but I need to be home in--” He checked his watch for effect. “--Forty-five minutes, and if I want to stop at the library before heading home, I need to get moving.” Except his ribs were already aching, and a four mile bike ride was going to hurt like hell. But they didn’t need to know that. He swung a leg over his bike, forcing himself not to wince at the sharp pain in his side, then glanced back at the two boys watching him. He sure as hell didn’t want to stay and answer more awkward questions, but just biking off felt weird. (And of course, he wasn’t stalling the unpleasant bike ride, nope, not at all) “So...I’m just going to...leave?” It came out as a question, but he wasn’t really sure how else to bridge the layer of tension in the air. 

 

“Look, is something, like, really wrong?” James asked abruptly. _If only he could tell_ _them_. Alexander raised an eyebrow, forcing himself into an amused expression. He’d gotten pretty good at acting over the years; Maybe he should go out for theater.

 

“Yes. I’m talking to you lot.” And with that, Alexander kicked off the ground, and started riding home.

 

                                                                  * * *

As soon as Hamilton was out of earshot, Thomas glanced at James.

 

“Something’s up.”

 

James was still gazing into the distance, where Hamilton was biking away. Without turning his head, he responded. “Yeah. He needs---I don’t know what. But something is wrong.” Thomas waited a moment.

 

“Do you think--should we--do something? Help him somehow?” Thomas glanced at James, who finally turned to look at him.

 

“I...yeah. I don’t know, and it’s definitely weird, considering that you were regularly beating each other up until last week, but yeah, because who else is going to help him?” Thomas thought about that one for a moment. It was scarily true. Hamilton had always seemed like the type to isolate himself, to avoid having to make friends. Thomas didn’t know why, but Hamilton had always seemed almost scared of the idea, of having people care about him. Of course, Thomas had always assumed that that was just how Hamilton acted around  _ them _ , that around other people, he was different. But what other people? Hamilton sat with Thomas and James at lunch, even if only to continue arguing with them. He was with them after school, fighting with Thomas, yes, but he always went home immediately afterwards. He could have been meeting friends between the time he left Thomas and James after school and the time he got home...But somehow, Thomas wasn’t willing to rely on those hypothetical friends to help Hamilton when something was so clearly wrong. But why did he  _ care _ ? When had Thomas started  _ caring _ about Hamilton? He turned back to James.

 

“Why is this  _ our _ responsibility? We don’t even like him. For hell’s sake, you’re right, we were beating each other up every day until a week ago. You and I argue with him every day at lunch and in debate. How did it end up with us being the only ones who care enough about him to notice that something is really fucking wrong?” James seemed to think about this for a moment.

 

“I have no idea,” he said, seeming to be still formulating his words. “But...We’ve got to do  _ something _ .” Thomas nodded thoughtfully in agreement.

 

“We don’t even know what’s wrong, though,” Thomas said after a pause. “I mean, we know that he’s not interested in fighting anymore, that he doesn’t seem to have  _ eaten _ anything in the past couple weeks--which is weird, ‘cause he eats at lunch, but like, he’s  _ small _ . More than usual, I mean. And he’s been moving strangely, like every step hurts.”  They stood there for a few minutes.  Finally, James broke the silence.

 

“Next time we have to make him tell us.” Thomas looked at him.

 

“How the hell are we supposed to do that?” He asked. James shrugged.

 

“I mean, I don’t have a magic solution. But let’s talk to him at lunch tomorrow, and maybe see if we can get some answers before he runs off again."

 

Thomas thought about this for a moment. “Ok.”  Then James broke into a smile.

 

“So, even with all the shit going on with Hamilton, are we still on for movie night tonight?” he asked. Thomas grinned.

 

“Hell yeah. We have four disney movies to get to. You need your childhood back.” 

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thomas and James worry some more. Thomas may or may not be a fungus. It's debatable, at least according to Hamilton.  
> George Washington notices that something's up.  
> LafayETTE  
> John gets teased for his crush.  
> I make HP references because I am trash.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Thank you so so much for the comments and the likes they make me so happy.  
> So...this...is a week late, sorry. The Hamsquad finally shows up, but apart from that, the chapter sucks. I hate most of it, but I'm already a week late, and I've made word count, so here it is. Sorry.  
> Oh, I almost forgot, Laf is nb. I realize that I have no right to write about this, that I, as a cisgender person, cannot claim to know what it's like. I guess all I can promise is that I'll do my research, and be careful? Idk guys, if this is offensive, please please please tell me and I'll take it down. But I'm making them nb because I've read a couple of other fics where Laf is nb, and I always have trouble using they/them pronouns in my head. I'm trying to fix that.

“Fuck this,” James said, standing up from his and Thomas’ lunch table. He started packing up his lunch. “Let’s go after him.”

‘Him’ was Hamilton, who had just left the cafeteria for the fourth day in a row. Usually, he sat with Thomas and James, and they spent the lunch period arguing. It was an arrangement that worked for all of them. James had once referred to it as ‘Symbiotic’, a description that described it well, despite making Thomas uncomfortable.(“I’m not a goddamned fungus, James.”) (“That’s not the fucking definition of a ‘symbiotic relationship’, Thomas. It’s a wonder you passed eighth grade biology.”). But anyway, whether or not Thomas was a fungus(Something Hamilton said was ‘definitely true’, much to Thomas’s annoyance)(And anyways, the ‘symbiotic relationship’ included Hamilton; If Thomas was a fungus, then Hamilton was too.) (“Thomas, would you and Hamilton shut up for one fucking minute?”)  _ Anyway _ , Hamilton had stopped sitting with them. He had stopped sitting with anyone, getting his lunch and leaving the cafeteria. A week ago, this would have meant nothing; It would just have made lunch slightly less interesting. But now? Now that worrying about Hamilton was a daily activity for Thomas? It was a frustrating cause for even more worry. Because something was  _ fucking wrong _ with Hamilton, something was going on, and Thomas didn’t even know what it was. If Hamilton would sit at their usual lunch table, if he would just  _ talk _ to Thomas and James, maybe they would figure it out and  _ help _ . But no, Hamilton was determined to keep it a secret, and now he wouldn’t even give them a chance to talk to him. 

In some ways, it was a relief to see James stand up in frustration, to know that at least someone else was as worried as Thomas was.

Out of the cafeteria, James glanced around the hallway. Thomas followed his gaze, trying to decide where Hamilton would have gone. His eyes caught on a flash of movement at the bottom of the stairwell.

He tossed a “C’mon,” back at James, and the two of them made their way down the stairs. Of course, of all the places Hamilton could be hiding, he had to pick the creepy art room stairs. They led to the school basement, and were the ‘art room stairs’ because the art class was the only class that was brave enough to meet in the terrifying school basement. The stairs also wound their way down in a spiral, getting increasingly dark as you descended and giving off the feeling that you were about to make a guest appearance in the Underworld. And, as though this weren’t enough already, they were wooden and unpainted(Something that it seemed the art students should have fixed by now, given that they were both the ones who had to walk down the stairs on a regular basis, and the ones who had access to paints.) Wooden, creaky, slowly-darkening spiral staircase. Of course this was where Hamilton would hide.

“You do you realize this is exactly how horror movies start?” James inquired as they picked their way down the stairs.

“I think he’s down here,” Thomas responded, ignoring James’ disturbing comment.

He was right; At the bottom of the staircase, with a textbook in front of him and a lunch tray to his side, was Hamilton.  He was writing furiously, taking notes from what appeared to be an American History textbook. Every few minutes, he turned and took a bite of whatever it was the school had been serving today. Wow. If Hamilton was pausing his work for even a few seconds in order to eat, he must be  _ starving _ . 

Thomas and James stood there for who knew how many minutes, until James finally stepped forward, loudly clearing his throat. Hamilton flinched violently, knocking his textbook closed. He spun around toward Thomas and James, and he looked  _ scared _ , scared beyond the whole Creepy-Art-Room-Stairs thing. And Thomas didn’t understand, because why would Hamilton be scared of them? But then Hamilton’s eyes focused on the two of them, and the fear slowly faded out, replaced by very clear annoyance.

“Jesus fuck, did you have to sneak up on me like that?” he asked. Thomas and James exchanged a glance, realizing that now that they had the chance to talk to Hamilton, they had no idea what to say. Hamilton watched them suspiciously.

“Why are you two looking at each other like that?” He demanded. Thomas waited for James to say something. James stayed silent, presumably waiting for Thomas to say something. They stood there in an awkward silence for a few minutes before Hamilton finally broke it.

“Well, I definitely appreciated you guys giving me a fucking heart attack, but if you don’t mind, I’ve got an essay to finish, and you can probably stare awkwardly at each other while I write.” Hamilton made to turn back around, but this time Thomas spoke up.

“No.” He said. “We need to talk.” Both of Hamilton’s eyebrows went up, but this time Thomas would have  _ sworn _ that he looked scared, and Thomas actually felt a little guilty about that, because he hadn’t meant to  _ scare _ Hamilton. 

“Yes?” Hamilton said, the skepticism in his voice covering the fear in his eyes. James, seeming to have noticed the  _ scared _ written all over Hamilton, elbowed Thomas.

“Could you have asked that in a more creepy way? ‘We need to talk’. Of course he’s freaked out now, you made it sound terrifying.”

“I am not ‘freaked out--” Hamilton began, only to be cut off by Thomas, who, while  _ ok, maybe James had a point _ , still felt the need to defend himself.

“Well, how would you have said it?” Thomas asked, stung.

“I don’t know, any other way? How about,” James turned to Hamilton. “Can we talk?” Hamilton opened his mouth to speak.

“James, you literally just rephrased what I said. ‘Can we talk’ is no less creepy than ‘We need to talk’.” 

“It’s  _ so _ much less creepy,” James replied. Thomas rolled his eyes.

“It’s  _ no different. _ ”

James turned to Hamilton. “Isn’t my way drastically better?” Hamilton looked at Thomas, at James, then back at Thomas. Then he backed away, retreating into his textbook. 

“Wait,” Thomas interjected before Hamilton could completely disappear into his work. “Seriously. What’s going on?”

“In my textbook?” Hamilton replied. “Chris Jackson just lost two thousand men at valley forge.”

“ _ No _ .” James spoke this time, frustration lacing through the one syllable word. “What the hell is going on with you? Why are you so--off? What is  _ wrong _ ?” 

Hamilton raised his eyebrows again. “‘Why am I so off?’” he repeated. 

“ _ Yes. _ ” Thomas said, and he was angry, angry that he cared, angry that he couldn’t have just kept hating Hamilton, that they couldn’t just have stayed in that symbiotic relationship or whatever it was, but even more angry that something was so wrong for Hamilton, and that he wouldn’t let Thomas and James help. “Just--What the hell is happening, and why won’t you tell us?”

A shadow crossed Hamilton’s face, and he glanced around the darkened hall, as though looking for a way out. With a heavy sigh, he turned back to James and Thomas, and opened his mouth to speak. Then all three of them jumped as the bell rang, deafeningly loud. Hamilton scrambled back to his textbook, shoving it back into his bag. Then he practically  _ ran _ up the stairs, past Thomas and James, out of sight.

* * * 

George Washington had been a high school teacher for seventeen years, and in that time, he’d learned a fair bit about high schoolers. For one thing, he’d learned not to try to put them in boxes. While at first, it always seemed as though they fell into neat, organizable categories, they never did, and trying to keep track of who fell into which box was enough to give anyone a headache.  He had learned that the way someone acted on the first day was rarely the way they would act for the rest of the year, which was partly why trying to put people in boxes was so damn confusing, because each kid changed so much over the course of a year. He had learned  to accept the fact that the kid who asked him for a project extension in the first month of class could be six pages over the limit on a paper in January. And that the same kid could go on to fail every assignment in March, only to ace the final exam. High schoolers had  _ no  _ consistency, and while at times, it made teaching hell, it was also what kept it interesting.

However, there were limits to how much change was normal. And George Washington was pretty sure that Alexander Hamilton had just exceeded every possible limit of change, suddenly switching extremes in the way kids only did when something was very wrong.

He had gone from  _ never shutting up _ to absolute  _ dead silence _ over the course of a week. And, George thought,  _ dead silence _ was rarely a good sign, especially when coming from someone previously as talkative as Alexander. 

George taught six classes a day; Each class had around thirty kids. Given that some classes switched at the end of the semester, George taught over three hundred students each year. He had been teaching for seventeen years which meant he had taught more kids than he was willing to do the math for. (Hey, he was an English-and-debate-and-sometimes-history-when-the-school-was-short-staffed teacher. Not a math teacher.) (Except for one class, ten years ago, when the school had been  _ really  _ understaffed and George had ended up teaching Calc. It had not exactly gone swimmingly.) Anyways, George had taught a lot of students, and he had learned the signs of when something was wrong. And all of the signs were currently pointing towards Hamilton, saying that something was very, very wrong. Yet George still had  _ no clue _ what it was.

He sighed. A glance at his watch told him that it was past five. George needed to head home; Martha was out of town, and God only knew what Lafayette was doing unsupervised. Yep, George really needed to go. 

* * *

When George walked through the front door of his house, he was hit with the vague impression that his kitchen was on fire. With a fair amount of trepidation, he approached the offending room. As he made his way through the living room, noting the ominous amount of smoke, he heard his name yelled from the kitchen, followed by laughter and the voice of Lafayette, his fifteen year old kid.

“Hello, George! We are cooking dinner tonight!” Lafayette’s French accented voice came into the living room.

“No, John and I are making dinner.  _ You  _ are being useless, and just burnt my pasta. How did you even manage to burn pasta?” Hercules Mulligan, one of Laf’s friends, and the only one who knew how to use a stove among them. If he was there, maybe the kitchen actually  _ wasn’t _ on fire, and it was just smoke from the ‘burnt pasta’. A head peered out of the kitchen, then retreated.

“Guys, he’s going to think we burnt down the house, the living room is full of smoke.” John Laurens, Lafayette’s other friend, who practically lived in the Washington house. 

“We did not burn down the house!” Lafayette called helpfully, his tone cheerful.This was not very reassuring, As George stepped through the kitchen doorway, however, he decided it probably was true. 

“Only my pasta,” Hercules grumbled. There were four pots on the stove, mixing bowls littered the counter, and the sink had too many utensils to count. The oven was on, the microwave beeping, and for some reason George didn’t even want to think about, the  _ toaster  _ was on, with something that was certainly  _ not toast _ inside of it. 

George slowly backed out of the kitchen.

* * *

It was nearly impossible to grade papers with the knowledge that the house was seconds from catching fire,  but somehow, George managed it. Eventually, three grinning high school juniors came into his office, informed George that they had burnt quite a lot of stuff, but had some potentially edible pasta now and would George like to try some? George walked into the kitchen, looked at the potentially edible pasta and-- “Is it supposed to be that color?”. 

He ordered pizza.

Fifteen minutes later, the four of them were seated around a table, eating some very good, and wonderfully not burnt pizza. Lafayette, John, and Hercules were laughing about something that had happened in school that day. George let his thoughts wander, thinking back to Hamilton. Then, seized by an impulse, he spoke.

“Do you guys know a boy named Alexander Hamilton?” 

Three heads snapped up, staring straight at George. Lafayette and Hercules shared a glance. 

“Is he small and has black hair?” Lafayette questioned.

“Takes a bunch of senior classes?” Hercules added.

“He plays in the band, the trumpet?” Laf threw in.  They glanced at John. “Very very well?”  John groaned. Lafayette grinned broadly, Hercules’s expression was almost identical to Laf’s, although perhaps it was slightly less malicious looking. 

“He has  _ dreamy  _ eyes?” 

“ _ Beautiful  _ black hair?”

“ _ So cute  _ when he stands on chairs to yell at assholes?”

And then all three of them were laughing, and John was blushing but laughing too, periodically trying to glare at the other two only to fall back into hysterics. 

George was, needless to say, slightly confused. Eventually, Laf pulled themself together enough to speak.

“Our John has, how you say, has been in love with your ‘Alexander Hamilton’ for the past, how long? It has been at least a month, would you not say?” John, still giggling, attempted to calm down enough to roll his eyes. Not managing it, he settled for lightly punching Laf. Laf rubbed his arm in mock outrage. John opened his mouth to speak.

“I am not  _ in love _ with Alexander Hamilton.”

“The past four weeks of John Lunch Table Talk would like to disagree with you.” Hercules said, grinning.

“Yes, you have talked only about him for some time now.” Laf put in.

“I have not talked  _ only about him _ . I have talked about many other things, too!” John said indignantly.

“Yes, you also talked about his hair.” Hercules said dryly.

“Do not forget his eyes, I have heard so very much about the eyes of Alexander Hamilton. I most likely could write one of those papers on the eyeballs of Alexander Hamilton.” 

John was muttering mock-angrily, and something about the scene was enough to drive away everything worrying George. He would fix it tomorrow, deal with it later. For now, he could enjoy the way that the three high schoolers were laughing and teasing each other, the way that Lafayette was  _ happy _ , because that hadn’t always been a given, hadn’t always been something that was sure to happen. And the fact that they could do this, that Lafayette could laugh with their friends, could look as though they had no worries, and not just because they were  hiding all of their problems where they thought George couldn’t find them? That was a cause for relief, a cause for celebration, and so George decided to take the night off from worrying. Tomorrow would come, with it’s reality check and worries, and George would meet it when it did, but for now, he had three laughing juniors happily eating pizza at his dinner table.

For now, all was well.


	4. A favor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thomas gets an unexpected phone call.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...this chapter is abysmally late. I'm sorry. I'm going to try to get into a routine, and hopefully get some weekly updates going. I am truly sorry.  
> On a brighter note, I finally figured out where this is going to go! I actually know the ending! Yay! However, I was looking back on this, and realized that I have TERRIBLE female representation. I have yet to introduce one female character. I am really really sorry. The Schuyler Sisters are going to show up soon, and I am going to write them to the best of my abilities. (I'm going to do multi-cultural Schuyler Sisters-- they're adopted, and Angelica is Muslim, Eliza is Jewish, and Peggy is Catholic. I am very excited. (Again, I'm going to try not fuck up the representation of identities other than mine--but I'll go more into how I'll try not to fuck up when they actually show up.)Although they might not be the Schuyler 'Sisters' because I'm thinking that Peggy will be genderfluid? I'm still not sure, but if she is, here's why: 1, because I kind of like the idea that the reason that she/they is 'and Peggy' isn't because Peggy's forgotten, but because when Angelica and Eliza are introducing themselves as the 'Schuyler Sisters' they don't introduce Peggy, and instead wait and see if Peggy's a Schuyler Sister today or not. I'm not sure if that makes sense, and if it's offensive, please let me know! I'm still kind of clueless about certain gender issues, but I'm reading about it and trying to get better. The other reason Peggy would be genderfluid is because I'm trying to get better at using the correct pronouns for people. I accidentally used 'him' for Laf in the last chapter, and I am sorry. I'm trying to get better, but I'm still not very good.)  
> Oh! TRIGGER WARNINGS: (the capitalization looks weird, but I want to draw attention to it.) So I don't *think* there's anything explicitly triggering in here, but there is a lot of heavily implied stuff. Um, I'm not sure how to do this without spoiling...Oh well, staying safe is more important.  
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> * TRIGGER WARNING for implied child abuse

The phone call comes in late afternoon, almost evening. Thomas is at home, working through math problems at the kitchen table. James is next to him, typing up his research paper for English class. They’ve been working for around an hour, maybe two, in the peaceful quiet of Thomas’s empty kitchen. His parents are away, and won’t be back until the next evening.

Thomas’s parents had been nervous about leaving Thomas alone for two days, and had only agreed when he promised to have James  sleep over. And while Thomas actually did like his parents, it was hard to imagine a better outcome; Two days of relative freedom, even if all Thomas was using it for waas doing homework at the kitchen table with James. 

A loud ring shattered the silence. Thomas stood up, not particularly fussed about leaving the math problem he had been working on. The caller ID informed him that the call was coming from a payphone, which was strange, because who the hell could be calling from a payphone? Then the phone let out another jarring ring, and Thomas picked up.

“Hello?”

“Thomas?” The voice on the other end sounded panicked, and Thomas almost couldn’t place the voice, not because he didn’t recognize but because there was  _ no way _ this voice would be calling.

“ _ Hamilton _ ?” At the sound of the name, James looked up from his English essay.

“Oh, thank god.” Hamilton’s relief-filled voice was quickly replaced by the sounds of a muffled argument. 

“Alex, I really don’t think this is a good idea.” A younger voice.

“Do you have a better one?” Hamilton’s words were short, but they didn’t match his tone, which was--not quite uncertain, but--scared. Sort of. 

“Yeah, I come back with you.” 

“Aaron, you know there is _no fucking way_ I’m going to let that happen.”

“‘I’ve done it before.” The other voice--Aaron?--insisted, and Thomas’s mind was scrambling frantically, trying to make sense of what on earth was going on, what the two brothers were arguing about.

“And as long as I’m here, it’s sure as hell not going to happen again.” Something inaudible, a  pause, than Hamilton’s voice came back, clearer.

“Sorry. Um, I--” Hamilton broke off, and the other voice said something Thomas couldn’t make out.

This was irritatingly confusing. Being confused was always irritating. Well, for Thomas, at least. 

“Hamilton, what’s going on?”

“I--need a favor.” Hamilton spoke hesitantly, which was a first, coming from him. “I’ll find a way to make it up to you, I’ll do whatever you want me to--I don’t know  _ what _ , but I’ll figure something out, I’ll do whatever I need to, I just…” And it made sense, Hamilton had no reason to think that Thomas would do anything for him, but it still made Thomas a little--Sad? Offended? Somewhere in between. Hamilton’s complete lack of trust for him, that is. It seemed probable that this phone call had to do with whatever had been going on with Hamilton the past week. And those two things together, Thomas’s desire to fix Hamilton’s lack of trust as well as wanting to help with whatever had been going on the past week, fueled Thomas’s next words.

“What do you need?”

“It’s--” Hamilton paused.  _ Hesitated _ . “Can my younger brother come stay with you for the next couple hours?” Which was an odd request from Hamilton, sure, but also one that Thomas could do pretty easily. He glanced at James.

_ What’s going on? _ James mouthed.

_ Hamilton needs help. _ Thomas paused, feeling both James’s confusion several feet away, and Hamilton’s anxiousness on the other end of the phone.  _ One second _ . Thomas mouthed to James. Into the phone, he spoke again. “Yeah of course.” There was an audible sigh of relief from the other end of the phone. This still made no sense. “But--why? What’s going on?”

The other voice cut through. “Alex, I want to stay here.”

“No. We’re not--” Hamilton’s voice broke. “Not doing this again. Look, it will be--” He seemed to regain control over his voice, suddenly making it brisk, almost dismissive. “It’s going to be fine.” And there were any number of reasons why the two boys on the other end of the line could have been arguing, but Thomas was finding it very hard to come up with one didn’t mean that something was horribly, horribly wrong.

Feeling awkward in the face of the arguing brothers, Thomas cleared his throat. The arguing stopped, leaving a silence in its place. Thomas searched for something to say.

“Do...Where are you guys? Do you need me to come pick you up or something?” Given that Hamilton biked four and a half miles to school every day(And no, it wasn’t creepy that Thomas knew exactly how far Hamilton’s house was from the school, it wasn’t as though you had to be a stalker to find someone’s address), and Hamilton’s house was even further from Thomas’s than it was from the school, a good eight miles away. It seemed a safe bet that Hamilton might need some help getting his younger brother to Thomas’s house.

“See, Alex, how are am I even going to get there?” 

“Aaron, shut up.” And Thomas could almost  _ hear _ Hamilton’s thoughts whirring. “Thomas, could you actually do that? I mean, I was going to bike over over with Aaron, but the sooner I get back, the better. We’re on the corner of Goldsberry and Soo, is that too far? We could still bike.” Thomas mentally calculated the distance to the intersection Hamilton was talking about. 

“No, I can be there in fifteen minutes.” A sound of relief from Hamilton, and disappointment from Aaron.

“Thank you.” There was, perhaps, more sincerity in Hamilton’s voice than Thomas had ever heard there before.

Absolutely none of this made sense, but Thomas was sick of having to  _ worry _ about Hamilton, sick of constantly wondering what the hell was going on and whether or not Hamilton was ok, and this was a way to help. This might be a way to fix whatever was going on, or at least to find out what the hell was happening,  and it made no sense, but it was worth it, worth the possibility of fixing whatever was wrong. Thomas turned to face James, who was watching him expectantly.

“So where are we supposed to be in fifteen minutes?” And James said  _ we _ . Of course he did. Thomas needed to spend more time being grateful for James.

“On the corner of Soo and Goldsberry, picking up Hamilton’s little brother,” James looked at Thomas, raising an eyebrow.

“What, exactly, was that phone call about?”

“Hamilton needs a place for his little brother to stay. I volunteered.” There was a pause. Then James shook his head, stood up, and took something off the counter --car keys. Ah, yes, helpful when driving somewhere. 

“Let’s go.” 

* * *

Thirteen minutes later, Thomas and James were driving down Goldsberry with the windows open, darkening evening air pouring into the car. As they came up upon Soo, Thomas could see Hamilton and a boy whom he presumed was Hamilton’s younger brother. A payphone stood next to them. Thomas slowed the car, did an absolutely terrible job parallel parking, and turned the key. He and James walked out of the car to Hamilton.

“Thank you.” The relief in Hamilton’s voice brought reminded Thomas of the strangeness of this situation. Hamilton turned to his brother. “It--will be ok.” He said quietly, in a tone that made it pretty clear to even Thomas that it wouldn’t. Hamilton’s little brother--Aaron?--glanced at James and Thomas, then looked back at Hamilton.

“I want to come back with you.” He said, his voice almost inaudible. A lot seemed to happen behind Hamilton’s eyes. Then it cleared.

“Not an option,” He said briskly, carefully closing the subject.

“It will be worse if you’re alone.” Aaron muttered.

“Whatever happens, it’ll be hell of a lot easier if I know that you’re safe ” Hamilton said firmly.

“It’s not your job to protect me.” Aaron said. Hamilton leveled him with a look.

“Yes, it fucking well is.” Hamilton’s voice didn’t rise in volume; it was powerful enough without it.

“You don’t know what’s going to happen, you might--” Hamilton cut Aaron off with a look so strong Thomas was pretty sure America’s dependency on foreign oil could be ended if that look could be turned into fuel.

This must be what James meant by Thomas getting carried away with his metaphors.

Anyway, in response to Hamilton’s look, Aaron rolled his eyes, switched...languages?...And began speaking again. But not in English. In something else. Thomas spent  a couple seconds trying to translate the words, than gave up, choosing to translate the emotions behind the words instead. There was fear, worry, guilt in Aaron’s words--then Hamilton spoke, with a similar mix of emotions. Aaron shot back frustration, and Hamilton replied by pushing everything but determination out of his voice. There was a pause, then Aaron said one last thing, in quiet, resigned other language. Hamilton responded with something in his voice that Thomas couldn't quite translate. The two brothers seemed to finally reach some sort of agreement. Hamilton turned to Thomas and James.

“I’ll call you--”

“Yeah, how are you going to do that?” Aaron muttered. Hamilton glared at him before turning back to Thomas and James.

“I’ll call you guys,” He repeated. “Or actually, I’ll come pick him later tonight, you live on the other side of the school, right?”

“Yeah,” Thomas replied. James was staring at Hamilton. 

“How, exactly, are you going to get there?” James asked. Hamilton shrugged.

“I’ll walk or bike or something.” He said, like it was obvious. Aaron made a sound of derision. Hamilton looked at him.

“Well at the very least, I can walk home.” Aaron said, his voice bordering on sarcastic.

“No,” Hamilton cut in. “I don’t want you coming back until it’s safe” And what in the  _ world _ was  _ that _ supposed to mean?

“We drive him home.” James said, to Hamilton. Said person hesitated.

“I...Don’t know. You--” Aaron cut him off, turning towards his brother.

“Well, if you don’t trust me to walk home--” And Hamilton opened his mouth at this, to which Aaron responded with an eye roll and-- “I know, I  _ know _ , but if I’m not going to walk home, this is better than you trying to bike eight miles with four broken ribs” Thomas and James exchanged a glance.  _ What the fuck are they  _ talking  _ about? _

Hamilton said something to Aaron in angry rapid-fire other language. Aaron looked unapologetic.

“So you still haven’t told them.” He said.

“No, you are well aware that I haven’t.” Hamilton said, frustration lacing through the words. Aaron rolled his eyes, and Hamilton huffed in response. “You can, if you really want. You know why I haven’t.”

“Yeah, I do, and it’s bullshit.” A small smile crossed Hamilton’s face at the sound of his brother swearing, and he didn’t respond. Instead, he turned to Thomas and James.

“Thank you. So much.”

“Of course,” James responded. Thomas was still trying to make sense of the conversation they’d just heard, desperately trying to come to any conclusion besides the one rapidly forming in his mind. He glanced at James, and could read the other boy well enough to know that he was embroiled in the same struggle.

“So what time should we drop him off?” Thomas finally asked, needing to break the silence. He felt weird talking about Aaron in third person when he was standing right there, but he felt even weirder addressing Aaron directly, so he settled for this. 

Hamilton hesitated yet again, and it was so damn  _ disconcerting _ , because  _ Hamilton didn’t hesitate _ . “I’m not sure yet. Could...I call you or something as soon as I know, and you could drop him off then?” And this, once again made no sense-- _ Unless Thomas was coming to an accurate conclusion, but he couldn’t be, that couldn’t be right _ \--but by silent agreement, Thomas and James agreed to just roll with it, again, because they had already done it so many times that evening and really, why stop now?

* * *

There was something immensely disconcerting about having the thirteen year old brother of a kid Thomas had been fighting with until a week ago in the backseat of his car.

There was also something immensely awkward about the heavy silence that filled every corner of the car, ever present after they pulled away from the curb.

Ever present, that is, until two cars cut Thomas off at the same time, nearly crashing into each other and causing Thomas to slam on the brakes, pulling the car to a screeching halt as Thomas swore.

“Thomas,” James said reproachfully. “Have you  _ never _ been around kids before?”

“What did I do?” 

“You’re not supposed to say, ‘Go fuck yourself, you absolute dickhead’ around thirteen year olds.” 

“But they cut me off!” Thomas defended himself. 

‘You’re missing my point.” James sighed.

“No, I understand your point,” Thomas insisted, “I just think that you’re wrong. My swearing was perfectly justified. Besides,” he pointed out, “You said it too.”

“I was repeating what you said,” James responded, in a tone that clearly said ‘Thomas is being outrageous.’ A sound brought Thomas’s attention to the backseat. Aaron was holding back laughter, a very Hamilton-like expression of amusement filling his face. Which was strange, because one glance was enough to tell that Hamilton and Aaron were clearly not biologically related. Yet when laughing at Thomas, the two brothers looked almost same.

Attempting to maintain some shred of his dignity, Thomas closed his mouth and focused on the road in front of him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that was that! I'll try to have the next chapter in a more reasonable amount of time. Thanks for reading, and thank you so so much to every commenter, and every person who clicked kudos, and actually every person who read this. I'm still amazed that anyone is actually reading and liking my writing? But thank you. Thank you so much.


	5. Puzzle pieces

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Thomas fails to make macaroni, James succeeds in making macaroni, and both of them learn some information about Hamilton's situation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! Look who's back! Incredibly late, but...Sorry. I'm shit at schedules. I have no excuse. I'm sorry.
> 
> It didn't come up in this chapter, but for the future: How should I conjugate verbs for Laf? Because ok if I was using, let's say, she/her pronouns, I might say "She was running." Because that's the third person singular conjugation. So logically, if Laf was running, I should say, "They was running." But that sounds weird to my ears. If that's the correct conjugation, of course I'll use it. Sorry and Thanks!
> 
> Also, fairly major TRIGGER WARNING for child abuse--if that's a trigger for you, you might want to skip this fic altogether. Stay safe.

Over the course of the past three years, Aaron had gotten used to most of the odd facets of life that came from living with Alexander Hamilton.

It wasn’t that things didn’t faze him anymore. It was just that he was pretty good at hiding it when things did. Maybe that wasn’t because of the three years with Alex. Maybe that was just who he was.

But for whatever reason, he was able to adjust to not-normal, and so, as weird as it was to be in a car with two people Alex didn’t even like--and whom Aaron didn’t even know--when the car pulled away from the corner with the pay phone, Aaron wasn’t thinking about the weird-awkward-randomness of the situation. He was worrying. Worrying about Alex, and the cost that would come because Aaron was sitting in this car right now, because Aaron had  _ left _ , had  _ left _ should have stayed, and why hadn’t he stayed, he should be there right now--A voice in Aaron’s head cut him off, a voice that had come to sound much like Alex in recent years. This had been Alex’s decision. Which didn’t make it ok, it didn’t mean that Aaron hadn’t royally fucked up--his spiral of thought was cut off again by the Alex-voice in his head, laughing appreciatively at Aaron’s cursing. Ever since one home two years ago, Alex swore a lot, too much maybe, but better than the alternative. Better than flinching every time a curse flew in their vicinity. Better than being afraid of words, as Alex had said when he started swearing again. (“We’re not going to live in fear of words, Aaron. They don’t get to do that to us.”) And Alex had followed through, although after awhile Aaron wasn’t sure whether Alex was swearing to reclaim the words or to piss off the people that had been their current foster parents at the time, and did not tolerate swearing.

Really, it wasn’t a surprise that some form of Alex had moved into Aaron’s head, given how Alex had been the first constant in Aaron’s life since his parents died, the only grounding force in the three years since they met. They hadn’t met...under the best circumstances. Alex had come crashing into the life Aaron had built in the home he had stayed with for a six month period three years ago. Knocking down every wall and barrier Aaron had built to protect himself, Alex barged into Aaron’s life as a not entirely welcome intrusion. And while Aaron hadn't been happy, and his life at that house hadn't been easy, it had been safer than it was after Alex came in. Alex had no sense of when to back down--or if he did, he chose to ignore it. Maybe he just didn’t care. Because he certainly didn’t care when the signs of  _ shut up now _ became glaringly obvious, didn’t care when he was warned, didn’t care when he ended up hurt. For a while, Aaron had thought that Alex simply didn’t care about anything. But then Aaron had fucked up, and had shattered whatever portion of his protective walls remained, and it turned out that Alex did care about something. He cared about Aaron.

Why, Aaron had no idea. Why Alex, who had only known Aaron a matter of months, had  _ cared _ so deeply that he was willing to risk himself in order to protect Aaron. And Aaron didn’t  _ get it _ . He didn’t get why Alex cared, and he certainly didn’t get why Alex had been willing to get hurt to protect him. At the time, Aaron decided that it was just that whatever instinct Alex had that made him get himself hurt made Alex sacrifice himself for Aaron, that it didn’t actually matter about  _ Aaron _ , that it could have been anyone.  As the years passed, Aaron began to wonder if maybe that was wrong. Because he still was sure that Alex would have done it for anyone, would have been far more willing to get himself hurt than watch anyone else in pain--If there was anything Alex couldn’t stand, it was seeing someone else in pain. Aaron suspected it had something to do with Alex’s past, something Alex had told him about once, briefly, but hated talking about. But anyway, Aaron thought that while Alex would, in fact, have done it for anyone, he did care about Aaron. For reasons still unknown to Aaron, Alex cared, and somehow, Aaron had ended up caring  _ back _ , and then there was the whole mess of  _ emotions  _ and  _ caring _ and then, because of Alex willingness to become even more of a complete pain in the ass than he already was--which was saying something--to their social worker if he didn’t put them together--when Alex had confronted him on it, he had looked so alarmed that Aaron had almost laughed aloud. So they had ended up together in their next placement, and then in the one after that and after that, and eventually it became a not entirely unspoken rule that one simply didn’t split up Aaron and Alex.

His thoughts were cut off by one of the boys, Thomas, swearing loudly and pulling the car to a screeching stop in the middle of the road. Then he and James got into an argument over whether or not it was appropriate to swear in front of Aaron(yes, it was, he had heard far worse), and the whole thing was so amusing, two high school senior boys arguing over whether or not swearing in front of a thirteen year old was ok that Aaron couldn’t help but laugh. Both of them glanced back at him with surprising synchronicity. Then James asked if music was ok, to which Aaron nodded, and unfamiliar but not unwelcome music filled the car. The windows were open, and cold night air poured in as music poured out.

* * *  

Pushing open the front door to his house, Thomas tried to pretend that he hadn’t just learned the first piece in a puzzle he desperately did not want to solve. The house was light when he walked in, meaning that he and James had forgotten to turn off the lights when they walked out. Aaron trailed in after James, and Thomas realized that this might be a problem.

Thomas wasn’t good around kids. He never had been, his only babysitting experience ending in fiasco when the eight year old got  _ out  _ and started running down the block, leaving Thomas with no choice but to grab the two year old and the six year old and chase the kid for four blocks while carrying two children in his arms. Later, James had told him that he actually  _ had  _ had a choice, as there had apparently been at least several better ways to handle the situation. At the time, however, Thomas had seen no other options, because little kids fucked with his head. He didn’t know  _ why _ , but all he had to do was be told that he was responsible for a kid under seven years old and he transformed into a freshman with their first AP tests in a week. Granted, Aaron was a bit older than seven, but it was the same idea. A younger human whom Thomas was responsible for. He glanced up, his eyes catching on James. So he wasn’t  _ solely _ responsible for Aaron, but it was still stressful enough to be getting on with. Suddenly feeling the urge to do something, Thomas walked over to the kitchen.   

“I’m making mac and cheese.” He announced to the room at large. James, predictably, rolled his eyes, while Aaron looked up curiously. Thomas walked over to the cabinet with the pots and pans in and grabbed one, which caused a horrible noise as every heavy metal object in the cabinet came crashing down on each other, knocking over the array of cooking trays positioned directly below the pots, which came cascading out of the cabinet along with the other pots and pans, and slammed themselves into Thomas’s ankles. The whole ordeal left Thomas sitting on the ground, surrounded by what appeared to be every pot and pan and kitchen utensil owned by Thomas’s family. Thomas looked around.

“Ow,” he said. James gave a long-suffering sigh. Thomas glared at him. 

‘Alright, I’ll make the mac and cheese, you,” James pointed to Thomas, “Get up, and go do something useful.” 

“I’m injured and all you do is mock me?” Thomas said, feigning offense. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Aaron suppressing giggles-- and whether at Thomas’s failure to pick up a pot or James’s exasperation, there was something about it that made Thomas considering changing his mind on the evils of all humans below the age of sixteen. 

“You’re not injured, you dropped three pans on your feet.” James replied driliy.

“That doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt!”

“No, it means it was your own damn fault,” James corrected, walking over towards Thomas. He picked up a pot of the floor, filled it with water, and dumped some spaghetti in. Thomas was horrified.

“You can’t use  _ spaghetti _ for  _ mac and cheese _ ,” Thomas said in an appalled tone. James levelled him with a look. Or, he tried to. It is very hard to level someone with a look when they are sitting on the floor, surrounded by pots and pans. Thomas had already been as levelled as a person could get.

“What would you like me to use?” James responded, sighing. 

‘Here,” Thomas began, hauling himself off the floor. “This.” He walked over to a cabinet which contained about thirteen boxes of macaroni. He pulled one out, brandishing it to James. “ _ This _ .”

* * * 

Thomas insisted on staying in the kitchen while James cooked, because “only God knows what else he’ll try to do to the poor pasta,”--and as unobservant as James said Thomas was, he could have  _ sworn _ that Aaron flinched at something in his words, but Thomas didn’t what it was or why, and maybe he had imagined it--and because going back to his homework seemed too dreadful, Thomas and Aaron ended up clearing off the kitchen table for monopoly. It turned out that it did not, in fact, take most people twenty minutes to cook macaroni and cheese, so by the time they had set up the game James was done, with three bowls of half-decent mac and cheese. He brought them over to the table with a vindictiveness that did not seem entirely necessary.

“Who’s which piece?” James asked. Thomas waited a moment for Aaron to answer, then when it became clear that Aaron was not going to speak, responded with,

“I’m the hat, Aaron’s the thimble.” It was only then that Thomas realized how  _ quiet _ Aaron was. He would have expected anyone who was related to Hamilton to be talkative, but Aaron had spoken a total of zero words since getting in the car with them, communicating in shrugs, and, in this case, by picking up his preferred piece. It was all very odd.

The game began, and it was surprisingly entertaining. Thomas found himself enjoying it, and was pleased by the way that Aaron seemed to enjoy it, too. It took a couple of rounds, but eventually Aaron came of his shell, so to speak. He still didn’t talk, but it was more than he had been doing before. And then, when things appeared to be going well, when Thomas was actually feeling as though they had succeeded--Look at him! Thomas! Doing a decent job with a kid!--Aaron just...shut down. One minute he was playing Monopoly,  and then, it was like he couldn’t see or hear anything that James or Thomas did. Like for him, the outside world had ceased to exist. And there was no discernible reason, nothing Thomas could think of that might have caused this, and suddenly Thomas felt as though the eight year old had just ran out the front door again, leaving him with no clue what the hell to do next.

Fortunately, James existed.

“Aaron.” James said urgently, out of his seat in an instant and crouching next to the thirteen year old in question. “Aaron, you ok?” Which seemed a pretty stupid question from Thomas’s perspective, but then again, he was the one who had backed into the wall on the far side of the room, putting as much distance between him and the situation as he could. But he wasn’t sure what his being in closer proximity to Aaron would accomplish. Aaron looked up at James, and Thomas could see his face. He looked terrified. And what in the  _ hell _  had just happened? Thomas didn’t understand, because of course he could have, would have, fucked something up, but he hadn’t  _ done _ anything prior to whatever on earth had just happened. 

“Can you hear me?” James said, and Aaron flinched back, before looking up again.

“Yes,” he said, his voice barely a whisper. James looked at Thomas, and it was then that Thomas realized James had no idea how to proceed, either. Thomas took a step forward.

“Are--you ok?” he asked, mentally cursing for repeating the same question he had deemed useless only a minute ago. Aaron looked up.

“ _ I  _ am,” he said, his voice no stronger. And, partly because of the strange emphasis on  _ I _ , and also because of the direction Thomas’s own thoughts had taken, it began to dawn on him that he had majorly fucked up.

Why the  _ hell _ hadn’t he said that Hamilton needed to come with them? How had he just let Hamilton go, alone, to whatever it was that he had needed Aaron protected from so badly that he had called Thomas, Thomas who was practically Hamilton’s archenemy? 

“Is--is it about Hamilton?” Thomas asked, still holding onto the hope that it wasn’t, that somehow he hadn't fucked up as badly as it appeared he had.  

Aaron’s look was enough of an affirmation. And that was the second puzzle piece, and it sent Thomas’s mind spinning so badly that it took a few minutes to pull himself together.

“Why is Hamilton not ok?” James said, the same dread that Thomas felt creeping into the other boy’s voice. 

“He’s going to get hurt, and it’s all my fault, and--” Aaron stopped, looking very close to tears but somehow managing not to cry. And Thomas clearly needed to do something, but he had no idea  _ what _ , and-- _ thank god that James exists. _

Thank god for James’s placating, measured tone, carefully asking Aaron what was going on.

Aaron gave a confused look-- _ how could you not know? _ \--But then he spoke, and it was the last puzzle piece, and a three piece puzzle was far too simple for Thomas to be able to pretend he couldn’t solve.

“He’s going to get hurt because I left, and--it’s my fault, I  _ fucked up _ , and I should have just stayed and dealt with it myself, but Alex wouldn’t let me, and he’s going to be hurt again, and--” This time Aaron broke off with a sob. James looked up at Thomas, and Thomas realized that James felt just as helpless as Thomas did. And they needed to do something, but how did one react to this kind of information? Because Aaron hadn’t told them outright, but it was pretty fucking clear what was going on. And how were they supposed to do with this? How the hell were they supposed to process that Hamilton and his brother were living under circumstances where ‘Alex’s going to get hurt because I left’? And what the  _ fuck _ were they supposed to do to help Aaron right now, to calm him down and reassure him from something that they knew  _ nothing about _ ? 

But Aaron was sobbing and James clearly didn’t know what to do, so Thomas took a step forward, sitting down to the ground next to Aaron. James stepped back, making sure that Aaron had space.

“Hey, take a breath. It’s going to be ok.” And Thomas cursed himself as Aaron looked up at him, his expression telling Thomas what he already knew.  _ How the fuck would you know that?  _ “It’s--not your fault.” Which seemed a safe thing to say, but also completely useless, and  _ oh, how was Thomas supposed to do this? _

“Hamilton--Alexander’s going to be ok.” James spoke up, and Aaron turned his face to the older boy. “He’s--one of the strongest people I know.” And Aaron didn’t look nearly convinced, but his tears were stopping--and while Thomas was pretty sure that was a sign of Aaron packing away his emotions more than anything else, it still felt like an improvement. 

“Tough, too. And he swears like nobody else.” Thomas added. Aaron gave a sad smile at that, which faded quickly, but still. Progress. (Progress that didn’t effect the actual issue, but it was still something.)

“Lee threw him out of class once for swearing.” James said.

“And H--Alexander said that he didn’t see why saying ‘fuck’ or ‘shit’ was a problem on his way out of the room, and Lee gave him detention.” Thomas remembered. 

‘I remember that.” Aaron said softly. “That was a rough night.” The words sat in Thomas’s head for a few minutes before they made sense. “They...Getting a detention wasn’t ‘good behavior’”. Thomas can hear the disgust in his voice as he says it. “Alex made me leave that night. I think that made it worse.” And as Thomas and James are processing  _ that _ horrible piece of information, Aaron looks at them, miserable. ‘And he did it  _ again _ tonight, even though he  _ knows _ it only makes things worse.”

“But he did it. It was Alexander’s decision, Aaron.” Thomas said gently. It was probably the wrong thing to say, but he had no idea what the  _ right _ thing to say was. 

“I should have done  _ something. _ ” Aaron muttered desolately.

“No, Aaron--you’re thirteen. You shouldn’t have to be  _ thinking _ about this kind of shit, much less dealing with it in real life.” James cut in, his voice holding a mix of emotion that Thomas couldn’t name but recognized as his own.

“Alex’s seventeen, and what he should be dealing with it?” Aaron responded, and  _ there _ , that was Hamilton’s fire, although it was different in Aaron. More...held back, somehow, but it was so similar, and despite their physical differences, Aaron looked  _ so much _ like Hamilton in that moment. 

“Neither of you should be going through this, but Aaron, Alexander’s trying to protect you. It’s the only way he knows how.” James said. Aaron looked up angrily.

“Exactly! It’s my fault. If he weren’t trying to protect me--” James cut him off.

“It’s not your fault. You guys are living in hell, but none of this is your fault. Look, you’re here, you’re safe, and that’s something. And when Hamilton gets here--” 

‘What if he doesn’t?” Aaron’s voice was so low that Thomas and James had to lean in to hear him. “What if he doesn’t get here? What if he can’t?”  _ Jesus.  _

“Then you’ll stay through the night, and at school tomorrow, we’ll make sure that neither of you ever go back there.” James answered. Aaron opened his mouth to speak, and, anticipating his next words, Thomas spoke.

“And if he’s somehow not at school tomorrow, we’ll take the gun in my basement to your house, break in, and search the place until we find him.” From James’s alarmed look, Thomas thought that maybe he had gone too far. But Aaron looked vaguely reassured, and that was something.

There was a pause. Then--

“Aaron, how do you feel about disney? Thomas and I have been working our way through the movies.” James and Thomas shared a look.

“I’ve...Never actually seen it.” Aaron responded honestly. Thomas gave a dramatic gasp.

“Alright, let’s go fix that. C’mon.” He said, gesturing to the other two boys. Together, they filed after Thomas into the living room, where Thomas put the  _ Mulan _ disk into the TV, and started the movie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's chapter five! Thanks so much for reading!   
> Ok, question: I think I mentioned Martha in the last chapter. How do you guys feel about her? 'Cause I was kind of thinking of maybe going for a single dad George who adopts Laf because Laf's parents die and George was a really close friend, and then Single Dad George accidentally ends up with like twelve kids in his house. But Martha's pretty awesome, too, so if you guys want her, I can work with that.


	6. during the night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Hamilton shows up and Thomas makes mac and cheese at 3 am

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNINGS for child abuse and injuries thereof (also for not-eating to the point where it fucks with your body--it might be triggering for someone with an eating disorder. Skip the fic if it could be a problem, no fanfic is worth your health)  
> Random things you should know about the chapter:  
> 1\. there is a point when Hamilton talks about laws concerning the foster care system. When he says that you can legally adopt someone at eighteen, THIS IS TRUE. Everything else he says in that section about laws concerning adoption and foster siblings IS BULLSHIT. I MADE IT UP. Remember when I said that I would promise to do research for this fic? Well, I will. I do. And I promise that when writing something concerning mental illness, gender identity, sexuality, or religion, I will do my absolute best to make it as accurate as I can. It will still have mistakes, but I will do everything I can to avoid them. When writing about a random law in the Washington State Foster Care System? I might make some shit up.(Yeah, they live in Washington, it's relevant later)(Wait, if it's a flipped fic, does that make Washington into Jackson? I think it does)  
> 2\. Hamilton asks Thomas not to tell anyone about the fact that his foster parents are abusive. THOMAS SHOULD IGNORE THIS. If you are ever in a situation like this, TELL SOMEONE. I'm not sure what is going to happen yet, but if Thomas does not tell someone, THAT DOES NOT MEAN IT IS THE RIGHT THING TO DO. It means Thomas is a teenager struggling with a tough decision.  
> 3\. There is too much dialogue. Sorry.
> 
> 4\. This is no longer relevant to this chapter, but I'm gonna talk about trigger warnings. Feel free to skip this. It is just my thoughts on the subject.
> 
> Oh, also, this rant(it's not really a rant, more my thoughts on the subject)--it's not proofread. Sorry. If some of the stuff in it is grammatically incorrect, doesn't make sense, is insensitive or offensive, I am very sorry. Leave a comment and I'll try to fix it.
> 
> I'm going to assume anyone reading this knows what a trigger warning is, and knows that it is not 'snowflakes not being able to handle people having different opinions from them'. That's not what a trigger warning is. If you don't know what a trigger warning is, leave a comment or google it. Anyways, trigger warnings are pretty common on a03, and I've seen a fair amount of stuff about them, both on this website and off it. Roxanne Gay, author of Bad Feminist, is not in favor of them(I say this because she is not exactly against them, but does not like them) I loved her book, love her, love her ideas, but disagree with her on this. (http://therumpus.net/2012/08/the-illusion-of-safetythe-safety-of-illusion/ a link to her thoughts on trigger warnings) She says that she 'doesn't believe in the illusion of safety [that trigger warnings try to create]". She says "Trigger warnings feel like censorship" and talks about how when she sees a trigger warning, she thinks, "How dare you presume what I need to be protected from?" She is a rape survivor herself, and as such, says that trigger warnings don't help you get over your triggers. That you never learn to callous up if everything is trigger warned.(I mentioned that she was a rape survivor because if a person without triggers said I would personally hit them over the head with a refrigerator). She also says that she cannot write the way she wants to write if she has to worry about trigger warnings. While these are all valid, relevant, and interesting points, I respectfully disagree(Does that sound really pretentious? I think that sounds really pretentious.) Anyway, I disagree with this. I'm going to start with the last one, that she feels she can't write the way she wants if she has to worry about trigger warnings. I understand where she's coming from, but disagree. Trigger warnings do not change what you write. When using trigger warnings, someone should write whatever they would have written without trigger warnings, and then proofread it, see what could be triggering, and tell people before they read whatever it is you were writing. this wouldn't change what you wrote, only warn people before they read it. She also said that trigger warnings fell like censorship, which is kind of similar. This may be true, but it only happens when trigger warnings are misused. Trigger warnings do not change what you write. Write whatever you want. Just tell people how upsetting it may be before they read it. (Continued in End Notes because I'm out of characters)

Hamilton didn’t call.

On the screen, Mulan saved China, and the credits rolled. Thomas glanced at Aaron, who was rubbing his eyes, looking tired. Thomas’s watch told him that it was past ten, which must be late for a thirteen year old.

 

“There are rooms upstairs, if you want to sleep.” Thomas said. Aaron instantly looked alert, and the  _ scared   _ return to his expression.

 

“No, I want to stay up. Alex has to be here soon.” Aaron responded; his obvious exhaustion and fear were easily audible in his voice. Thomas and James shared a look, and by silent agreement, James stood up and put  _ The Little Mermaid _ disk into the television. He sat back down as the movie began to play.

 

Somewhere around “Poor, Unfortunate Souls” Aaron fell asleep. Thomas turned down the volume  and glanced at James.

 

“What should we do?”

 

James shrugged. “Stay here, I guess. Wait for Hamilton. Do you--do you think he’s ok?”  _ No.  _ If Hamilton was ok, he wouldn’t have sent his younger brother to his sworn enemy. He  _ certainly  _  would have called them by now. James seemed to read all of this from Thomas’s face, and winced.

 

“Sorry. That was stupid. But, do you think we should do something? What if he  _ can’t  _ call?” James said, inadvertently giving voice to Thomas’s fear.

 

“What would we do?” Thomas asked, helplessly.

 

“I don’t know.” James said. “But something. Maybe we could do something.” He glanced at Aaron, than back at the TV screen. Thomas followed his gaze, watching Ariel walk around on her new human legs. With no idea what else to do, they both focused on the the screen, although neither one of them could say precisely what was happening. There were more important things to think about than Disney.

 

* * *

It was a little after one in the morning when the doorbell rang.

 

Thomas jolted up, rubbing his eyes. It took him a moment to get his bearings; he was on the couch, the TV still playing in the background. He must have fallen asleep. Next to him, James looked up, sleepiness written all over his face. Thomas glanced over at where Aaron had been, and noted that at the sound of the doorbell, Aaron had jumped up, and was running towards the door.

 

The sight of the thirteen year old sprinting across Thomas’s kitchen began to cut through the  fog of exhaustion filling Thomas’s head, and he pulled himself off the couch. Walking through the kitchen at a much slower pace than the thirteen year old, Thomas followed Aaron to the front door, which had already been pulled open, revealing Hamilton.

 

A flash of relief cut through to Thomas--Hamilton had come, everything might be ok. And then Thomas remembered, remembered that there was  _ no fucking way _ that the black haired boy would be ok right now. But--Hamilton didn’t look hurt. Thomas looked at him for a moment, checking for signs of injury,  _ and what had life come to that this was something he had to do _ , but Hamilton looked ok. He was wearing a long sleeve sweater, long pants, and looked utterly exhausted, but not injured. And Thomas allowed himself to breathe a sigh of relief, because  _ everything was going to be ok,  _ and it didn’t change what Aaron had told them, but Aaron was thirteen, and he actually hadn’t said very much outright, it had mostly just been implications, and maybe everything would be alright.

 

Hamilton looked up, and he looked so damned tired, exhausted in a way that came from more than a lack of sleep. He glanced at Thomas, and gave a quick nod of thanks before turning to Aaron, who was speaking in rapid fire Other Language. Aaron was clearly upset, and Hamilton seemed to be trying trying to calm him down. It didn’t seem to be working, but then again, Thomas had no idea what was being said.

 

“What language is that?” James asked, coming up behind Thomas. Hamilton and Aaron froze, both wearing matching expressions of being caught red handed. Then the moment passed, and both brothers relaxed. Hamilton sighed, looked at Aaron with apology, then turned to James.

 

“It’s Greek” He said.

 

“How the fuck did you guys learn Greek?” James swore more when he was tired, Thomas had noticed. He found it amusing, how different Tired James spoke from Regular James.

 

“No one speaks Greek,” Aaron explained. Neither James nor Thomas considered this an explanation. Perhaps, had they been fully awake, it would have been easier to understand, but it was  _ one in the fucking morning _ . The two of them just stared at Aaron.

 

“What, have you ever met someone who speaks Greek?” Aaron said defensively. James rubbed his eyes.

 

“I mean, if I lived in Greece, I probably would have.” Thomas responded. Aaron rolled his eyes, turning to Hamilton, his expression written very clearly across his face.   _ Please explain, because these two clearly can't comprehend basic common sense.  _ This seemed unfair to Thomas. It was one in the morning. Hamilton sighed.

 

“Look, when we met we were kind of...living in a rough situation. And--the next place we went kind of sucked, too, and we figured it wouldn’t hurt to be able to communicate without our foster parents--anyone knowing what we were saying.” He finished, wincing, and had Thomas been more awake, he might have wondered whether he was wrong in thinking that Hamilton wasn’t hurt, but one in the morning had a way of slowing down Thomas’s ability to put two and two together. However, Thomas did realize that they were still awkwardly standing in the doorway, and his parents had taught him some basic manners, so he told Hamilton to come into the goddamn house already, it’s fucking cold and we should close the door. Hamilton looked up quickly.

 

“Oh, um, we should probably go home.”

 

“The fuck?” Thomas asked eloquently. He would have said more, but was cut off by-- _ greek _ , Thomas now knew, as Aaron spoke to Hamilton. Hamilton responded. The response did not seem to satisfy Aaron, who’s next words came in English. Thomas liked English.

 

“No, you’re  _ not ok, Alex!  _ I know what you look like when you’re ok, and you’re  _ not!  _ You can’t walk eight miles with five broken ribs, not even you can do it. And what, you don’t think that they’re going to be mad at you for leaving and for keeping me out?” Hamilton glanced at Thomas and James.

 

“Aaron--” He said tightly switching back to Greek. (Later, Thomas would demand a proper explanation for how the two of them learned Greek. But now was not the time.) Aaron cut Hamilton off.

 

“You can speak English, they know.” Aaron said tiredly. Hamilton opened his mouth, and Aaron answered the coming question. “I hate talking about it as much as you do, and I didn’t actually mean to tell them, but they know, and it’s good that they know because you’re a fucking idiot who’s going to go make more stupid decisions, and maybe they’ll have more luck than I do trying to convince you not to do anything else stupid.” Aaron looked into Hamilton’s eyes defiantly.

 

“I’m sorry.” Hamilton’s voice was low, and he was looking straight at Aaron. Aaron shook his head.

 

“I don’t want you to apologize. I want you to not kill yourself trying to walk home with broken ribs  so that you can just get hurt again when you get back.” Aaron said, something between tiredness and defeat coloring his words. Hamilton sighed in defeat, and looked to Thomas.

 

“Yeah, you should stay.” Thomas said, still not quite following the conversation, but slowly waking up a little more. Aaron turned to his brother in satisfaction. Hamilton rolled his eyes and said something in Greek, which Aaron ignored with a smile of victory. James cleared his throat.

 

“So you guys are still kind of standing in the doorway...there are a bunch of extra rooms you could stay in upstairs, or you could sleep down here, or…?” James let his question hang in the air. Thomas glanced back into the living room, wondering how Hamilton would feel about sleeping in Thomas’s  house. He looked back, and froze. Hamilton’s sleeve had fallen, exposing his wrist, and letting Thomas see that Hamilton’s arm was almost black with bruises. And  _ fucking hell _ , because he had  _ thought Hamilton was ok,  _ and he had known that things were rough for Hamilton but hadn’t known that they were this bad,  _ shit _ , and  _ and how fucking hard did you have to be hit for your arm to look like that? _ Hamilton looked up, his eyes catching on Thomas’s, and he pushed his sleeve down, covering his arm. Thomas opened his mouth,but Hamilton spoke first.

 

“It’s not that bad,” He said in a low voice,

 

“Hamilton, what the fuck?” Thomas asked.

 

“It looks worse than it is. Seriously, it wasn’t nearly this bad when I left the house; Walking in the dark made it worse, I fell on my way here and used my arm to break the fall. Stupid, but instinctive.” Hamilton’s voice held throughout his jumble of excuses, giving the right inflections to make it seem realistic. But underneath, he sounded  _ tired _ , and Thomas wondered how many times he had gone through this, how many times he had been explaining away injuries that he should not have, trying to make it seem like they might have come through something accidental.

 

James looked at Thomas. “You--you can’t possibly think that we’re actually going to believe that.”

 

“Seriously, what the hell?” Thomas added. There was a pause. Hamilton said something to Aaron in Greek. Aaron responded.

‘

“Wai-shit.” James said suddenly. “Hamilton, how badly are you actually hurt?” This made no sense to Thomas; had James not seen Hamilton’s arm? Aaron crossed his arms and turned to his brother, clearly waiting for Hamilton’s response.

 

Hamilton glared at Aaron, then turned to James. “I’m ok--really. I’ll take a painkiller or something when I get home, and--” Aaron was looking at Hamilton carefully.

 

“What else happened?”

 

“What?” Hamilton asked, taken aback.

 

“What the hell happened? It’s not just your arm; You only act as though something small hurts when you’re trying to hide something bigger, and you’re so afraid of painkillers you’ll barely take an aspirin. James’s right; How badly are you actually hurt? ” Aaron’s gaze met Hamilton’s in a silent standoff. Thomas tried not to think about what must have happened for Aaron to classify what had happened to Hamilton’s arm as  _ something small _ . Several seconds passed, in which Hamilton did not give in and Aaron did not back down.

 

“So you are hurt worse than just your arm.” James said, a statement rather than a question. Hamilton looked up.

 

“I--” he paused. Then, quietly: “Yeah, of course.”

 

“Hamilton--” Thomas started.

 

“I really don’t want to talk about it. Is it alright if I just go to sleep? I’ll stay here tonight, and we can talk more in the morning.” Hamilton did sound tired, and it was one in the morning, so even though   _ no, it’s not alright, not if you’re hurt _ , Thomas let it slide.

 

* * *

 

Thomas’s house was big, and it wasn’t hard to find two rooms with beds that Hamilton and Aaron could sleep in. James went to sleep, and so did Thomas. He stayed asleep until about three, when he woke up and decided to go downstairs to get some water. Careful not to wake James, Thomas got up and walked into the hall, where he noticed the light to Hamilton’s room was on. Thomas lightly knocked on the door. There was no response for a few minutes. Then the door opened, with Hamilton standing behind it.

 

“Here, come in.” Hamilton said quietly. “Or you’ll wake everyone up.” He wasn’t wrong. Thomas stepped into the room, closing the door behind him. Hamilton sat back onto his bed. His sleeves were pushed up his arm, revealing not only the bruises that Thomas had already seen earlier(And  _ oh god, his other arm was almost as bad _ ) but also words, scrawled up and down Hamilton’s skin. Thomas stared at them, trying to figure out what it said, before realizing that it was not in English.  Following his gaze, Hamilton pushed his sleeves down, covering the words. Thomas noticed a pen lying next to Hamilton.

 

“I’ll be wearing long sleeves all week anyway,” Hamilton said. “I figured I may as well.”

 

“What, write on yourself?”

 

“Yeah. I started a couple years ago, when I first got here.”  ‘Here’, Thomas decided, meant ‘The USA’.  “I didn’t have a notebook, so…” Hamilton trailed off, letting his sleeves slide back so that Thomas could see the words. 

 

“Jesus, Hamilton.” Thomas said, wincing at what covered Hamilton’s arms more prominently than letters.

 

“Wha-oh. It’s really not that bad. It could be so much worse.” Hamilton said, then backtracked at the Thomas’s expression. “No it’s like--I don’t mean it like that. It’s--not that bad.” Which was not even close to convincing. This, too, must have been present on Thomas’s face, because Hamilton sighed. “Look, I don’t--I’ve never talked to someone like this.”

 

‘You’ve never what?” Thomas asked, sitting down next to Hamilton.

 

“Never had someone knowing about-- _ it _ \--who’s not--Oh god, I can’t even speak properly anymore. Someone knowing about what’s going on. It hasn’t happened in years. Well, someone knowing about it who's not my social worker, and knowing before I end up in the hospital. I mean, there was a teacher at one point who figured it out, but they knew for like a day before I was out of there, and--yeah.” Hamilton finished. It didn’t make a whole lot of sense, but one piece of rang strongly in Thomas’s mind:  _ This isn’t the first time this has happened. _ He inferred that something like this had happened at the place where Hamilton met Aaron, but now... _ god damn it _ .

 

“You need to tell someone.” Thomas said. Hamilton looked up sharply.

 

“And how the  _ hell  _ would you know that?” Hamilton replied icily, all of the opening-up gone from his voice.

 

“Because if you’re hurt--and you  _ are _ , then you need to get out of there. Aaron, too.” Thomas spoke carefully, for once choosing his words.

 

“You don’t know a  _ thing _ about what I should do.” 

 

Thomas sighed. “Hamilton--”

 

“I’ve  _ fucking thought about this _ , Jefferson. I haven’t just _ not thought  _ of the possibility of telling someone.”

 

“Then why don’t you?” Thomas challenged, and winced as he immediately regretted it. He needed to get Hamilton to agree with him, not to pisss Hamilton off further. To his surprise, however, Hamilton didn’t start arguing. Instead, he took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Opening them, he spoke, and he sounded so  _ defeated _ . And Thomas had no idea how to do this, how to talk to a defeated Hamilton, and he wished that Hamilton would just get angry with him, because at least Thomas knew how to deal with angry Hamilton.

 

“Because I can’t. Because everything would be so much worse if we left, if I told--” Hamilton said, turning to face Thomas.

 

“How can anything be worse than this?” At this, Hamilton gave a dark, quiet laugh, and looked away.

 

“Believe me, Thomas, it could be a fuck of a lot worse.” And Thomas didn’t ask how, because he did not want to know. “Also--how the hell would I even tell someone?”

 

This was confusing. “Um, call your social worker?” Thomas said. Hamilton gave a soft laugh.

 

“Yeah, that would go over well.” Thomas didn’t know how to respond to that.

 

“Tell a teacher.” Thomas suggested, after a pause. Hamilton took a breath, looking at Thomas.

 

“I did that before.” he says thoughtfully, unconsciously rubbing the words on his arm. 

 

“And…?” Thomas asked. Hamilton sighed again.

 

“Look, it’s not that easy.” Hamilton leaned back into the bed.. “‘Hi, Mr. Washington. My foster parents hit me and I’ve been living off of school lunches for the past month. Just thought I would tell you. Thanks!’” 

 

“Well you could--wait what?” Thomas said, blinking. “You haven’t been  _ eating _ ?”

 

“What?”

 

“Holy fucking christ, Hamilton--” Thomas swore, standing up. Hamilton looked at him blankly. 

 

“What are you doing?” 

 

“We’re going downstairs to get you some goddamn food.” Thomas said, opening the door.

 

“Wha--no, Thomas, what the actual living fuck?” Hamilton made no effort to stand up.

 

“You--oh my god, what do you do on weekends?” Thomas asked, ignoring Hamilton. 

 

Hamilton seemed unconcerned. “I--No, I was--yeah, I did, but it’s like two days, I’ve gone longer, and-- _ Thomas seriously you are over reacting _ .” He said, in response to Thomas’s walking out of the room. Thomas did not turn around. With a sigh, Hamilton stood up and followed.

 

* * *

 

“I still think there’s no need for this.” Hamilton said uncomfortably, watching Thomas pour cheese over the boiling pasta.  Ignoring him, Thomas stirred the pot with a wooden spoon.  “Seriously, Jefferson,” Hamilton continued, leaning back into the wall opposite the stove. “Isn’t this overkill?” Thomas continued to ignore him.

 

“Can I please just go back to sleep?” Hamilton asked.

 

Thomas took his time responding, still stirring the pot. “You’re going to be up anyway. If you’re awake, the least you could do is eat something.”

 

 

“For fuck’s sake, I’m not even hungry.” Hamilton said, accidentally brushing  the oven.  It beeped. “Shit, what did I just do?”  Thomas glanced over.

 

“Nothing, you just hit cancel.” He said. Hamilton relaxed. 

 

“Then can I go upstairs?” he asked.

 

“Hamilton--” Thomas started, stepping back from the pot and turning to face Hamilton.  “When was the last time you ate?” 

 

“Lunch yesterday, I was making up the math test at lunch today. Why?” Hamilton appeared unconcerned, and Thomas didn’t know how to respond to  _ it’s normal that I haven’t eat for a day and a half. _

 

“Hamilton, eating isn’t a fucking optional activity.” Thomas said.

 

“Yeah, if I had the option to eat, I would.” Hamilton responded shortly, then winced. “Sorry, you didn’t deserve that.” There was a pause, filled only by the soft sound of boiling water.

 

“Whuzzgoingon?” Aaron’s sleepy voice floated into the room from the doorway. 

 

“Ah shit, I woke you up.” Thomas said from the stove.

 

“It’s not your fault; he’s slept lightly every since Springfield.” Hamilton said quietly to Thomas, who, for what felt like the hundredth time that evening, tried not to think about the implications of what that meant. To Aaron, Hamilton spoke again. “Thomas decided to make macaroni and cheese at--” He glanced at the clock on the microwave. “Three in the morning.” 

 

Aaron blinked. “Do you ever eat anything else?”

 

“Yeah, loads of other stuff.” Thomas said, affronted. Then he cracked a smile, hoping to make Aaron laugh. “Spaghetti and cheese, Kroger boxed mac and cheese, pasta with cheese sauce, cheese with pasta, rapidmacs--tons of stuff.” It worked. Aaron giggled, and Thomas felt as though he had succeeded.  

 

“I still don’t see why I can’t just go upstairs.” Hamilton muttered. Thomas didn’t dignify with a response; instead, he checked the pasta, and was pleased to find that it was done.

 

“Alright, sit down at the counter.” Thomas directed. Neither of the other two followed his orders. “Both of you, sit. I’ll get bowls.”

 

“I’m not a  _ dog _ , Thomas, you can’t just order me to sit.” Hamilton said dryly.

 

“Really? ‘Cause you certainly resemble one.” Thomas responded, grabbing three bowls from the cabinet.

 

“Oh, so  _ original _ and  _ hilarious _ .” Hamilton said, leaning back into the wall.

 

“Seriously,  _ sit _ .” Thomas said as he filled the bowls with pasta. “You too, Aaron.”  Grudgingly Hamilton lifted off the wall and picked up one of the bowls.  Thomas opened a drawer and tossed a spoon at him, which caused Hamilton to flinch back into the wall.  _ Ah shit, of course throwing something at Hamilton was going to freak him out. _ “Fuck, sorry.” Thomas said, cursing himself for not thinking.

 

“It’s fine.” Hamilton paused, looking at Thomas. “Sorry.” 

 

“What--” Thomas started. Hamilton sighed.

 

“Throwing things doesn’t exactly  bring back the best memories.” Hamilton said, almost apologetically, which upset Thomas, because  _ he should not be the one apologizing _ . Aaron, thankfully, broke the silence again.

 

“Why do you even like macaroni and cheese so much?” Aaron asked.

 

“Yeah, seriously, this is disgusting.” Hamilton added. Thomas adopted an offended look.

 

“I’ll have you know that mac and cheese is the  _ food of the gods _ .” He paused, watching the other two. “It says so right here on the packaging.”

 

“Hand me that.” Hamilton said, grabbing the box off of the counter. “Nutrition facts...Expiration date...Ah, here we go. ‘Cheese: the food of the gods.’. Thomas, that’s talking about cheese in general, not specifically with pasta. Also, it’s the company talking about itself. They’re not going to put, ‘tastes like a dead raccoon and tennis ball blended together.’ on the package, even if it’s true.” Hamilton passed Aaron the box.

 

“Aren’t there laws against lying on packages?” Aaron mused, looking down at the advertisement.

 

“Give that to me, you unbelievers.” Thomas said, taking back the package and putting it out of the reach of the other two. “You guys are terrible.”

 

“Not as bad as your mac and cheese.” Aaron said. Hamilton laughed, high fiving Aaron. Thomas scowled.

 

“I feel attacked.” He stated. Hamilton laughed again, happily. His sleeve fell backwards a little, revealing the bruises again, and Thomas couldn’t help but feel amazed, amazed that someone who was literally living through hell, who had the evidence of pain covering his arms, could still sit and laugh with his brother over a bowl of mac and cheese. 

 

The three of them stayed in the kitchen for another fifteen or so minutes, before Aaron went upstairs to go back to sleep. Thomas glanced over at Hamilton, and noted that he still had barely eaten anything.

 

“Hamilton, you really should eat. I can get you something other than mac and cheese if you want, but seriously, it’s not good. You need to eat.” Thomas said. Hamilton shrugged.

 

“Honestly, Thomas, I don’t.” He said, holding up his hands as Thomas opened his mouth. “No, it’s not--” He sighed. “I’m not hungry.  I don’t get hungry anymore, and I know that’s bad, but there’s nothing I can do about it, and for now, it’s easier this way. I’ll turn eighteen in six months and then--I’ll figure everything out then.” Hamilton looked across the room. “I just have to make it six more months.” He finished quietly.

 

“Why?” Thomas burst out. “Why do you have to make it six months? Why not get out now? Hell, if you can’t tell someone, I’ll do it for you. Just  _ get out of there _ .” 

 

Hamilton didn’t hesitate. “Aaron.”

 

“What?”

Hamilton took a breath. “I’ve--lived with Aaron for three years. When I turn eighteen, if my social worker will testify, Aaron can come with me. Technically you only have to be eighteen to adopt someone, but I’m not exactly the ideal candidate, so they could easily say he can’t come live with me. But if we’re staying at the same home at the time I age out of the system, and my social worker testifies that we’re foster siblings and we should be able to live together, then we can leave. I can’t--if I tell someone and leave here, and Aaron and I aren’t placed together, then it all goes to shit. Or if one more move is the last straw and my social worker decides not to testify. I can’t--can’t risk that.” He looked up at Thomas. “Please. Don’t tell anyone. Let me do this. I’ll be ok for another six months and then--” 

 

“Where are you guys going to go?” Thomas asked, out of both genuine curiosity and a need to stall until he could figure out how to derail the conversation and convince Hamilton to tell someone about what was going on.

 

“I got into Columbia--full ride. So we’ll go there, I’ll get a job somewhere, Aaron can go to school in New York, we’ll get an apartment, and it will-it will all be ok.” Hamilton had a faraway look, as though he could already see it, as though the next six months of hell he would have to live through to get there had already disappeared. As though he could see past it, to the future.

 

Thomas couldn’t see past the bruises on Hamilton’s arms.

 

  
  


 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> She also talks about needing to get over triggers, and 'How dare you presume what I need to be protected from?" These are, once again, a really good point, but my take on this--and once again, is exactly what she said: "How dare I presume what you need to be protected from?" How dare I try to decide for you how to best handle your mental health? That is not my decision to make. If you think that reading something with triggers is the best way to get over them, then ignore reading trigger warnings. But it isn't my choice to make for you, so I put trigger warnings on my stuff, to give you the option of not reading it.  
> the Illusion of Safety: Yes, we cannot trigger warn for everything. But does that make what we can do useless? Does not being able to help everyone mean we shouldn't help whoever we can? I think it doesn't. You might think it does. That is ok.  
> So, to finish this section of my rant(but not the whole rant--I've got even more coming. I know, I talk more than Hamilton) I love Roxanne Gay. She is one of my favorite writers, and is absolutely amazing. Everyone should read her books. She's killer smart, is a black feminist writer((Protip: Whenever you find women of color writing about feminism, read it. Don't just read white women.) She talks about her own life experiences and ties them to feminism and politics in a truly wonderful way. I love her. But I disagree with her on trigger warnings.
> 
> I also think that trigger warnings are especially important in fanfiction. This is because of trust. When I read a published book, I trust that the author has researched their book, and knows what they are talking about. I don't have that trust in a fanfic. You have no reason to trust me. So, if something that is triggering to you comes up in my fanfic and you aren't expecting it, you have no reason to believe that I'm going to talk about in a realistic or helpful way. I'm probably not. I'm not a very good writer. So, because you can't quite trust me, I use trigger warnings so that you don't have to. No sure if that made sense, but oh well. 
> 
> Next section, TRIGGER WARING for self harm. (Yes, I'm trigger warning my thoughts about trigger warnings.)
> 
> Last reason(For now) that I use trigger warnings: Because of me. Because I need trigger warnings. (I'm not really sure how to phrase this, but here goes) I'm pretty damn privileged. I've had an amazing life so far, and don't have very many triggers. However, about a year, for a couple months, I cut myself. I don't anymore. I told someone, and figured it out, and things are going better now. Reading about isn't quite triggering to me. It doesn't make me more likely to hurt myself again. But when I come across it in a fanfic, and I'm not expecting, it freaks me the fuck out. If there aren't trigger warnings and I didn't know it was coming, I usually play a fun little game called how fast can I get out of this fic. it's unsettling. I understand that I have to be able to deal with this, and when it comes up in books, I actually can.(Not that it isn't ok if you can't). But when it's in a fanfic, it's hard, because I don't trust the author. I don't trust that it's not being used for an essy high, that it's not being used to add angst and drama to the fic. Don't get me wrong--it's alright to use it for angst and drama in the fic. That is ok. Hell, I use other people's for what could be defined as angst and drama in my stuff. If that's what you want to read or write, it's ok(Although, for self harm and suicide, please please please look into the Before Not After Project, just 'cause that's important.) But if you use my triggers for angst, I don't want to read it. You can do that, but I can't read that fic. So, trigger warnings, and everything works out.
> 
> Ok, I just thought of this. ACTUALLY the last reason: Using a trigger for shock content is a shitty thing to do. Using rape, self harm, suicide, abuse for a cheap shock is a dick move. Don't do it. Trigger Warnings help prevent this.
> 
> Alright, sorry that took so long. See you next time! Thanks for reading my fic!


	7. A day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Alexander goes through his day, we finally meet Angelica, and Lee is an ass.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING for child abuse, fire, and on screen violence. Or at least, more on screen violence than I've done before.
> 
> Oh, I forgot to mention last time, but: Thank you guys so much for the input! Thanks to you all, we're going to be doing Single Washingdad who starts dating Martha and ends up with far too many children.
> 
> I know that usually I talk forever here, but I actually don't have that much to say right now! Um, I won't have internet for a couple weeks, but given how long it takes me to post each chapter, you probably won't notice. I'll be around for a few more days, though, and the only difference you'll probably see is that there will be a pause in me responding to comments.
> 
> have I mentioned that I love comments? They literally leave me smiling for days.
> 
> You guys are the BEST. I love you all. Thanks so much for reading!

There was a new girl in band.

 

A new trumpet, actually, sitting in the seat next to Alexander’s. She was sitting in the place that would have placed her a chair ahead of him, but it wasn’t really relevant. If they had had a bigger band, perhaps they would have actually had a proper First Chair and Second Chair and so on, but seeing as Alex was the only trumpet, it had never been necessary.

 

Well. The only trumpet until now. The girl was pretty in a kind of badass way, had dark skin, and was wearing a headscarf--and Alex felt a little guilty that that these were his first three observations about her, because if she had been white and not wearing a headscarf, it wouldn’t have registered as something to think about, and wouldn’t the world be so much better if people didn’t think of  _ white Christian  _ as the default? And, for that matter, being straight? And if being pretty wasn’t pre-determined by a set of standards that--

 

_ Goddamn it, Alex, shut  _ up.

 

She also had her trumpet out, her music on a stand that she had somehow found--The school’s band program was underfunded because so few kids participated in it (Did that make it properly funded? If it had not enough funds to function, but also not enough kids to function, did the two cancel each other out?). The band had somewhere between three and four music stands, and they always ended up somewhere they were not supposed to be. Which made finding one a very impressive feat.

 

Damn. This girl had her shit together. Suddenly aware of her eyes on him, Alex moved into the chair next to her quickly, taking his trumpet out of the case as he sat down. He glanced around , pleased to see that for once he  _ wasn’t _ the last one to class. The room was still half empty. Turning the girl next to him, Alex spoke.

 

“You’re new,” he stated. The girl raised an eyebrow in an amused expression.

 

“Really?” She looked around the room in mock surprise. “Oh my god! I hadn’t even noticed!”

 

“I figured someone ought to inform you,” Alex said, going along with it because why the hell not.

 

‘Well,” the girl looked at him, leaning back into her chair. “I suppose I’m just greatly indebted to you now, aren’t I?” Alexander wondered if she was flirting with him.

 

“I suppose you could pay me back if…” Alexander held on to the pause for a moment. “You shared that music stand with me.”

 

“I hear they’re in great demand around here. Why don’t you guys just get some more music stands?” Her eyebrows were raised again.

 

“Hell if I know.” Alex replied, leaning forward to push his trumpet case under his chair, and  _ no, the simple action didn’t make every part of him ache from last night’s not-even-begun-to-heal injuries. _

 

The banter continued until the room filled up and they had to focus on defending their music stand. There was something about talking to her that just  _ clicked _ somehow.(Not in a romantic way, although they still might have been flirting.) But it wasn’t that. And it wasn’t that she was particularly easy to talk to, what with her ripping apart everything he said in deadly sarcasm. It was just...he wasn’t sure what it was. It just worked, the two of them talking.

 

The room quieted down when Washington walked into the room.  He re-announced the concert coming up in three weeks with a pointed look at the saxophone section. (There was a very real possibility that the saxophone section was still unaware of what piece they were supposed to play.) “And we have a new student, Angelica Schuyler. You’re not our only trumpet anymore, Alexander.” Washington said.  Alex forced himself not to flinch at the use of his full name. (He wished, out of all the things he had lost, that he could have kept his name. He hadn’t, though, had had it stolen by the connotations of the anger and the pain that always--not always. Sometimes, most times,  _ enough times _ , came with his name. Most people called him ‘Alex’, now, which helped.) “Alright, I think that’s everything! Let’s start.”

 

 

The band took out their music and the song started, and  _ damn, Alex loved this. _ He loved the music--loved music in general, because of all of the reasons one would like music but also because music had always been safe. (Maybe it was the only thing that had always been safe). But he also loved that he was a part of it; he belonged to something, was helping to create something, instead of just destroying things. (“That’s bullshit.” Aaron would have said. “That’s their shit, in your head. You don’t destroy anything.”) Maybe Aaron was right, or maybe he was wrong. Regardless, Alex loved band. He had always liked it and probably always would, even on days like today when the simple act of playing his instrument hurt.

 

Eventually, the bell rang.

“So what do we do with the music stand?” the girl--Angelica--asked. Her mouth quirked up in the corners. “Should I take it to English with me for safekeeping?”

 

“We can--You have English next?” Alex asked.

 

“No, I was lying. I actually have chemistry next, I just said that to confuse you.” Angelica said with a completely straight face. For a moment, Alexander was completely lost. “Yes, Alexander--that’s your name, right? Yes, I have English next.”

 

“Alex,” he corrected automatically. “And so do I. Do--” Had it been anyone else, he would have asked if they knew the way to English. However, with Angelica, Alexander was pretty sure she would just laugh at him if he offered help.

 

Washington taught an English class, but so did Lee, and of course Alexander and Angelica had gotten Lee. They arrived outside the classroom, and Alexander paused for a moment.

 

“So, um…” He started, aware of what he needed to say, but also unsure exactly how to phrase it. “Well, you know how our city is basically the city equivalent of a swing state?”

 

“A swing city.” Angelica said, a smile pulling at the corners of her mouth. “And no I didn’t, but such information is always useful when standing outside of an English class that starts in two minutes.”

 

“I had a point,” Alexander sad, momentarily forgetting his point. “So, well, Lee is on an--unfortunate side of that. Wait, you’re not Republican, right?”

 

“Yes, I’m all in favor of the party that just nominated a candidate who wants to ban people of my religion from the country.” She smiled at him. Angelica smiled a lot. It made her sarcasm feel less personal. “Yeah, I’m democratic.” She paused. “You are too?”

 

“Yeah, yeah of course.” He decided whether to add something of his own. “I’m totally with the party that just nominated a candidate who wants to build a wall to keep people like me out of the country. “ Alex said, which caused Angelica to laugh. “anyway, Lee is on the unfortunate side of the swing. He’ll probably vote Trump. Actually, he definitely will, he’s told us that. So…”

 

The bell rang. 

 

“Thanks for the warning.” Angelica said. “Shall we brave the classroom?” Alex opened the door and they walked in, sitting in Alexander’s usual spot at the back of the classroom. Luckily, there was an extra desk in this classroom.

 

Thomas and James filed in, taking the seats on Alexander’s left. Just as they did every day. And all the thoughts of last night (Damn, that sounded dirty.) of yesterday and what Thomas and James now knew flooded in, and so Alexander looked away from them, deliberately avoiding eye contact. On the edge of his vision, he could see Thomas and James exchanging a look and whispering to each, clearly about him. (“Yeah, Alex, everyone’s always talking about you, that’s all they ever do.” Aaron would have said, rolling his eyes.)

 

“Hamilton.” Thomas whisper, trying to get Alex’s attention. He ignored them, looking at Lee. 

“Hamilton-- _ Alexander _ \--” He was cut off by the final bell.

 

“Angelica Schuyler, where are you?” Lee said, looking around the classroom.  “Class, this is our new student.” His eyes found Angelica, and he looked a little surprised . Giving Angelica a hard look, he said, “Miss Schuyler, this school has a strict  _ no hat _ policy, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to take that off.”

 

Alexander was already halfway out of his seat, ready to give an all out rant on how fucked up this was--preferably while standing on a table--when he glanced at Angelica. Angelica’s facial expression in that moment was one Alexander would have given just about anything to be able to recreate. He wondered how she had figured out how to do it, because it was the perfect response to this. Then he wondered how often she had to deal with this shit. Her expression was a perfect mixture of confusion, disgust, boredom--It was both a ‘What the hell are you talking about?’ and ‘fuck you’, as well as a little bit of, ‘you sure you want to say that?’. Alex sat back down. Lee, even though he was many rows of desks away from Angelica, stepped back a little.

 

“I’m not really sure what you’re referring to,” Angelica said, her expression changing to one of

bewilderment.

 

Lee looked around the room. “Your head covering. I can’t allow that in my class.”

 

 

“Actually, by the 1969 Supreme Court ruling of Tinker v. Des Moines, you have to.” Angelica said. 

 

Alexander leaned over.

 

“If he won’t let it go and you’re alright with detention, the desks are fun to stand on.” He said quietly.

 

“That shouldn’t be necessary, but thanks.” Angelica said, never taking her eyes of Lee.

 

“Miss Schuyler,” Lee said, “I have the right to enforce certain rules in my classroom.”

 

“The thing is, you actually don’t.” Angelica said with a smile. “again, in Tinker v. Des Moines, the Supreme Court ruled that a student can wear anything that expresses a political or religious message, as long as the message isn’t vulgar. And given as my hijab doesn’t have any words written on it, I’m not really sure what you’re trying to do.” Lee stared at her for a minute. Alexander was pretty sure Lee was trying to decide whether Tinker v. Des Moines was a real case or not.

 

Evidently, Angelica’s mind was on the same track. “You know, Mr. Lee, it’s usually a good idea to do some research before attempting to engage in religious oppression.” Lee looked affronted.

 

“I  _ can _ send you out of my class for disrespect.” He said dangerously. Angelica’s smile was terrifyingly sweet.

 

“I’m aware.” Then she crossed her legs and looked up at Lee. Lee looked unnerved. Alex actually couldn’t blame him for that. Clearing his throat, Lee gave his head a shake and started the lesson.

 

When class ended, Angelica and Alexander walked out into the hall. Somehow, even a Lee Lecture had been fun while sitting next to Angelica, passing notes back and forth before eventually just giving up and whispering for the rest of class.

 

“What do you have next?”  Alexander asked.

 

Angelica didn’t even have to check her schedule. “Calculus.”

 

“I have Chemistry. But Calc is right across the hall. C’mon, I’ll walk you.”

 

 

* * *  

Thomas didn’t know what to do.

 

He would decide that alright, he would tell Washington or someone. Then he would think about Alexander and what he had said and decide that he couldn’t do that, after all.  And Alexander ignoring him throughout English hadn’t helped, either. He figured that a chance to talk to the other boy would help Thomas decide what to do, but Alexander hadn’t seem too keen on that idea. However, when Thomas wandered into chemistry two minutes after the bell and discovered that Alexander was his lab partner this week, Thomas figured that now the other boy would  _ have  _ to talk to him.

 

An odd thing: Somewhere between the time between he had cooked mac and cheese last night and today, Thomas had begun to think of the black haired boy as  _ Alexander _ , instead of Hamilton.

 

They were doing some weird experiment that the teacher had explained last week but Thomas had forgotten. His and Alexander’s table was in the middle of the room, and just like every other table, had a small tea candle on it, as well as a metal dish. Thomas hoped the experiment involved fire.

 

“Alright, sit down.” Ms. Allen said. “You’re going to be heating various substances over the candle. The materials are on the back counter. One partner holds the dish, the other partner records data. All of the information is in the pamphlet I handed you last week. Any questions?”

 

Yes. Thomas still had no idea what the fuck they were doing. Alexander looked at him.

“Do you have the pamphlet?” Alexander whispered.

 

“No, I lost it.” Thomas said. “Also--” Alexander had turned away and was facing the teacher. Thomas sighed, and looked around. He noticed his water bottle sitting on the edge of the table and moved it to the floor.

 

“Well, if no one--No, Hercules, you can’t light the desk on fire.” A guy in the back of the room lowered his hand, grinning.

 

“Aw, Ms. Allen, I’ll put it out before anything happens!”

 

“ _ No _ . Now, since there are no more questions--” Ms. Allen sighed, and looked over at a girl sitting near the door. “Yes, Veronica?”

 

“Uh, why are we using tea candles for a chemistry experiment?” The girl asked.

 

“Because the school is broke and won’t fund bunsen burners.” Ms. Allen answered briskly. “are there any more questions?”  The room was quiet. “So I’m going to bring around a lighter, and you can-- _ No,  _ Hercules, I’m going to light the candle for you. Sorry, class, I’d normally let you guys light your own candles, but unless you guys want to give Hercules Mulligan access to a lighter, I’m going to have to do it for you.” Hercules was grinning; his partner,(in more than the chem lab, Thomas suspected) Lafayette was doubled over laughing.

 

Thomas glanced at Alexander, and--something was wrong. Ms. Allen walked over to their table, and Alexander was staring at the lighter, completely ashen, and  _ something was wrong.  _ Thomas had known for a while that Alexander was almost impossible to read, but this, something about this was terrifying to Alexander, to the point where even Thomas could see it, and Thomas wasn’t sure how to help. But what--The fire. It had to do with the fire, that must have been it, and Alexander needed to get out of the classroom, away from it. Ms. Allen clicked the lighter on, and Alexander looked so  _ scared _ , and so Thomas picked up his water bottle, unscrewed the lid, and dumped it on Alexander. Subtlely.

 

The cold water seemed to shock Alexander out of it a little--he didn’t look  _ better _ , but less...less like he was seeing something else. More like he was  _ there _ , still terrified, but there in the classroom rather than in whatever memory had set this off. Ms. Allen looked at them, taking in the drenched Alexander.

 

“I’m so sorry, Alexander! My water bottle spilled, and--oh god, you’re completely drenched. Wait,  I have an extra set of clothes in my locker, can we-Ms. Allen, can Alexander and I go to my locker, I have some clothes he can borrow.” Thomas said, putting on his best innocent expression.

 

“Ok, come back when you’re done.” Thomas thanked her. Alexander, thankfully, seemed to register what was going on and followed Thomas out of the room.

 

* * *

 

Once in the hall, Alexander collapsed against the lockers.

 

“Are...You ok, man?” Thomas asked. Alexander looked up.

 

“Yeah, yeah, I’m--I’m fine.” He paused, eyeing Thomas. “You did that on purpose?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

Alexander took a deep breath. “Thanks.” Thomas shrugged,

 

“What happened?” he asked. Alexander sighed, and suddenly Thomas wondered whether asking had been a mistake, whether maybe this was a story he didn’t want to hear.

“Fire.” Alexander said. “Fire is bad.” And Thomas should have left it at that, but he had to know.

 

“Did...Did a house burn down, or was it something else?” Thomas spoke carefully. Alexander gave a mirthless laugh.

 

“Yeah, no. I wish.” He said bitterly.  “It was--home before Aaron.” He took a breath. “It was hell. Two younger kids, seven and eight. A girl my age.” Alex gave a small smile. “Eliza. And a single mom. There were--rules, and we were expected to follow them. I didn’t. I...I guess you could say I was in some sort of teenage rebellion?” A shaky laugh. “Yeah. That didn’t go over so well. Whenever I fucked up, or broke her rules, there was--there were punishments. And--I broke a lot of rules. That happened a lot.” Thomas waited, but Alexander took several moments to reply. He seemed lost in his own head. “The punishment--for breaking her rules, it was--ten seconds. Ten seconds of a lighter held against you, and then--then I was done. Ten seconds.” He drew in a shaking breath. “Ten seconds.”

 

_ Fucking hell _ . Thomas closed his eyes, trying to process the story, trying to take the elements Alexander had given him and come up with anything but the conclusion. Trying to take two and two and get anything but four. 

“I can’t even count to ten any more.” Alexander said, and Thomas could so easily have made a joke out of that, but he also  _ couldn’t _ . “Numbers are bad. So’s--So’s my full name. That’s what she called me.” He paused, looking at Thomas. “I can’t even hear my fucking name anymore without flinching. I--You know how you used to joke about me failing math?” Thomas nodded, horrified. “Yeah, I am. I can’t--can’t handle numbers. Everytime I look at them, it’s counting to ten again, waiting for it to stop hurting so goddamn much.” Alexander paused, and a dark silence filled the air between him and Thomas. Finally, Alexander spoke again.

 

“I--fuck, Thomas, I can’t go back in there, with the fire and the lighters. I _can’t_. When she took that lighter out--oh god, it’s like I’m back in that house.” 

 

It took Thomas a moment to realize that Alexander was talking about chemistry. 

 

“We can stay out here.” Thomas promised. 

 

“But--then you’re skipping class.” Alexander spoke as though this was an insurmountable obstacle. “I can’t ask you to get detention for me.”

 

“You’re not; I’m offering.” Thomas said. “Besides, detention is literally sitting in the gym for forty-five minutes doing homework. I’ll survive.” Alexander started, and then relaxed into the lockers.

 

“Right, right, yeah.” He said quickly, looking at his hands. Thomas suddenly understood.

 

“It’s not like that for you, is it?” Thomas asked.

 

Thomas knew Alexander well enough to be able to figure out that whenever possible, Alexander would make a sarcastic remark. His favorite opportunities for sarcasm were when Thomas said something vague, like ‘It’s not like that for you, is it?’ Alexander should have been making a sarcastic comment right now. Instead, though, Alexander just laughed a little. It was the same shaky laugh as earlier.

 

“Yeah, no. It’s not.” Alexander looked at Thomas, something odd in his expression. “I just..” He shook his head in wonder. “‘Detention is doing homework. I’ll survive.’ Yeah, it’s not like that for me.” Thomas almost spoke, almost asked, but for the first time that day, managed to keep his mouth shut. He didn’t need to know.

 

And there was one more thing he didn’t need to know; what to do about about telling/not telling. 

 

There was no way in hell he was going to let anything like Alexander’s story happen again. He would talk to Washington tomorrow.

 

* * *

After Chemistry was history, and it might have been an interesting lesson, but Alexander really had no idea, as he hadn’t paid any attention. After history was lunch. Alexander ate his lunch in the stairwell near the art room and took notes for gov while eating.

 

As annoying as Thomas was, Alexander was so glad that he had been there in Chemistry; He didn’t know what he would have done if Thomas hadn’t gotten him out of there.

 

After lunch was Calc; Alex did his best to tune out the teacher, to ignore the flood of numbers pouring in.

 

After Calc was debate. Thank god. Alexander didn’t know if he would have been able to get through anything else.

 

A voice greeted Alexander as he walked into debate.  “You take--of course you take debate.” It was Angelica. Alexander looked up, forcing himself out of his thoughts.

 

“How did you know I took debate?” He asked. Angelica raised an eyebrow,

 

“Remember in English, when Lee told me I was going to have to take off my hijab? You looked like you were ready to kill someone.” She paused, correcting herself. “Like you were going to kill  _ Lee _ . It didn’t seem like you would have killed, you know, any random passerby.” So Angelica was observant. Alex filed that away under  _ Possibly Useful Information _ . Washington handed out the debate topics for the day, and Alex was pleased to find that he was on a team with Angelica. They were against two senior guys. The debate was on immigration, Alex and Angelica arguing for lesser immigration laws and the seniors arguing for harsher ones. 

 

The  _ click _ that Alex had felt in band was stronger in debate. He and Angelica worked perfectly as a team, and there was something so  _ fun  _ about it. Alex would start an idea and Angelica would finish it, wording it better than he ever could. They bounced back and forth, each idea going from Angelica to Alexander and Alexander to Angelica until they had something they could work with. More than work with; Until they had something fucking brilliant.

 

The senior boys lost. Alexander would have said that his team crushed them.

 

“See you in band tomorrow?” Angelica said as they walked out. Alex smiled.

 

“Yeah. See you.” He left the school quickly, heading for his bike. He was grateful to Thomas, really, he was. But that didn’t mean that he wanted to  _ talk _ to the other boy. Getting on his bike, he rode away from the school, towards the bus stop.  

 

The bus arrived at the bus stop nine minutes after Alexander, and he got on, paying the driver. The driver gave him a smile as he paid, as she always did; She knew Alex by now, as he had taken this bus almost every day after school since arriving. Not on Mondays, but every other day. And she had no way of knowing how much that smile helped him, how much the little acknowledgement of  _ here’s an adult who knows you and doesn’t hate you _ helped him get through each day.

 

There were currently three people in the world like that, and each one counted.

 

Well. Four if you counted the yarn lady on the bus coming home from work, which Alexander supposed he did, so there were four people like that currently alive in the world.

 

After paying his fare, Alexander walked to the back of the bus, taking his usual seat beside a girl who he was pretty sure was about his age.  She was listening to music, as always, not noticing him until he sat down. She offered him an earbud; It was Panic at the Disco, as always.

 

Alexander listened to the music. As always. And took out his history textbook and began the nightly reading. As he did on the bus every day.

 

Sometimes, it felt as though routine was all he had left. He was lucky, here, that this was his routine; That the thing he could depend on was listening to music with a girl on the bus while doing homework. There had been times when the only routine he had, the only consistent thing he could count on was pain.

 

If it hadn’t been for Aaron, Alexander wondered whether he would be alive right now. Whether his life might have ended long before. Whether it would have been his own hand that did it, his own inability to go on.

 

It was a thirty minute ride to Alex’s stop. They arrived in the middle of This Is Gospel, which was disappointing, because that was Alex’s favorite song. He thanked the bus driver as he walked off. The bus driver told him to have a good day. Just like always.

 

Once out of the bus, Alexander made his way through the mall to the restaurant where he worked. 

It was a little after four when Alex arrived, and the restaurant was mostly empty. Alex headed into the kitchen to help set up for the rush hour. 

 

“Hi, Alex!” Lily greeted him as he walked in. Lily and her husband, James, owned the restaurant. It was a small place, but also kind of nice; Alex liked it there. Lily and James were, incidentally, two of the four adults who made Alexander feel like he wasn’t completely fucked up. 

 

It wasn’t that people his age didn’t count, but there was something about having so many adults, so many people who had experience being a person, hurt him that made Alex wonder whether there was something wrong with him. 

 

James was in the middle of cooking something, although Alexander wasn’t quite sure  _ what _ . He was pouring something into the food processor. 

 

“Hey, Alex!” James said, looking up. Alex gave a smile in response. “Oh, I didn’t take the dishes out, I know you have a system. They’re in their usual spot.” Alexander grinned at this. He did, indeed, have a system, a way he kept the dishes set up during rush to make things go faster.

 

Rush, in Alex’s mind, started at five thirty. By six, the place was packed. It was a small enough restaurant that Lily, James, and Alex were enough to run the place, although on particularly busy days, James left the kitchen and helped Alexander bring food out to the tables.

 

At first, Alexander had thought this was odd; if it was busier, wouldn’t you want more people in the kitchen? But apparently once you had made the ‘base’, making the other dishes took almost no time. That was the answer when he had asked James. When he had asked Lily, he had been told that, “James is a terrible under-pressure cook, and he gets stressed during rush, which means that I get stressed, and then the pasta burns.” So on days like today, James helped serve the tables.

 

“Alex, table five needs water.” James called, quickly walking out of the kitchen. 

 

“On it!” Alex said, finishing up table seven’s order.  This was good; he could do this. He walked into the kitchen and picked up the waters, as well as table four’s food. The kitchen was steamy as Lily boiled another pot of water. 

 

Water to table seven, food to table four, check in on table eight, then back to the kitchen. As he walked into the kitchen, James was talking to Lily.

 

“...They don’t speak English! What do I do?” James was saying, looking panicked. Lily was right when she had said that James got stressed during rush.

 

“Wait, who doesn’t speak English?” Alex asked. 

 

“Table two!” James said, raking a hand through his hair in frustration. 

 

‘Alright,” Alexander said, trying not to laugh. Lily had failed, laughing as she quickly poured sauce onto three plates of pasta. “Do you know what language it was?”

 

“No! I know it wasn’t French. That’s it.” James paused, and Lily burst out laughing again. “Wait, could it have been Spanish? They looked like it could have been Spanish.” James looked thoughtful for a moment, then stricken. “That was racist, wasn’t it? Bloody hell.  Wait.  Do you speak Spanish?” He looked around.  “Ah fuck, that was racist too, wasn’t it?” He looked genuinely sorry, and that, combined with his hair that was sticking up in all directions, combined with the humor of his overall state of panic caused Alex to laugh.

 

“It’s fine. Yeah, I do speak Spanish, I grew up in the Caribbean. Uh, I was going to bring these drinks to table seven…?” 

 

“Got it,” James said gratefully, picking up the cups. Alex laughed again and went to talk to table two.

 

He left the restaurant at eight thirty, as usual. His bus didn’t leave until nine, which meant that, if he sprinted through the mall, he had twenty minutes at the bookstore.

 

The bookstore was a decent size, small enough that the only employee Alexander ever saw was the woman who he was pretty sure owned the place, but big enough that Alex could disappear into the shelves. He arrived at the bookstore with 25 minutes until his bus left, which gave him plenty of time. Quietly walking in, he went straight to the third shelf on the left, and ran his thumb down the spines of the books until he found the one he had started the week before. He pulled it out and opened to the third chapter.

 

He let himself fall into the book a little, knowing that his watch beeped on the hour and that would jolt him out of the book in time to catch the bus. He always worried that his watch wouldn’t beep, but so far, it always had. When it finally was time to go, Alexander carefully closed the book, and slid it back onto the shelf. He gave it one last longing look before turning to walk out of the store.

 

“You can take it with you, you know.” The voice startled Alex, and he spun around, heart pounding. The woman was looking at him, eyes crinkled in a smile. “The book, I mean. You can borrow it.” 

 

“I--what?” He asked, glancing at his watch nervously. 

 

“Here,” She said, walking over to the shelf and pulling out the book he had been reading. “‘ _ The Upside of Unrequited _ ? A good choice. You come here every day, you can borrow the book. Just bring it back next time you come by.”

 

Alexander wasn’t sure how to respond. He knew it was a bad idea, knew that so many things could happen to the book, and what if he lost it? And he didn’t have any way to repay her. But he wanted to it so badly.

 

“I don’t have any money.” He said.

 

“That’s quite alright.” She responded, still smiling.

 

“Are...you sure?” 

 

“Yes, I am. Just bring it back when you finish.” She said.

 

“I’ll bring it back tomorrow.” Alexander promised. He glanced at his watch. “I...really can’t thank you enough.”

 

“Just enjoy it.” She said. And Alex thanked her one more time and walked out of the shop holding the book.

 

Maybe that made five people.

 

Then he sprinted out of the mall and to the bus stop.

 

* * *

Alexander arrived at his house a little after nine thirty, carefully unlocking the door. It was silent, which he used to think was a good thing, but had since learned could go either which way.

 

He walked up the stairs to his and Aaron’s room and opened the door. Aaron was sitting on his bed, his head down, taking notes out of a textbook. And something was wrong. Alexander could sense that much.

 

“Hey, Aaron.” He said. Aaron looked up. His eyes confirmed what Alex already knew; something was wrong.

 

“Hey, Alex.” Aaron responded. He looked back down at his homework. Alex walked across the room and sat down next to him.

 

“What happened?”

 

“Nothing happened.” Aaron said, continuing to write. Not answering the question.

 

“Bullshit.” At this, Aaron glanced up, before looking back down.

 

“Nothing happened. They didn’t do anything. I’m fine.” Aaron said, still not making eye contact.

 

“I will fucking kill them. _. _ ” Alex said, unable to hear anything over the sound of his own heartbeat. “We’re leaving. We’re leaving in ten minutes, after I  _ fucking kill him. _ ”

“No, Alex, please--don’t do anything, you know it’s dumb. I’m  _ fine _ .” Aaron pleaded. Alex leveled his eyes at Aaron.

 

“How badly are you hurt?”

 

“Not badly. I--it’s  _ nothing,  _ Alex, you’ve had so much worse, don’t go do something dumb, you’re going to get hurt.” Aaron pleaded.

 

“How badly are you hurt?” Alexander repeated.

 

“I’m fine. I--he hit me a couple of times, but it’s nothing, you’ve had so much worse, I’ll be fine.” And  _ fuck, they didn’t get to this.  _ This was a line Alex wouldn’t let them cross.

 

But first, Aaron. Aaron came first. Once he knew that Aaron was ok, he could go downstairs and figure out what the next six months would look like. But first, Aaron.

 

“Alright, where are you hurt, and--the medicine and shit is still in your bag?” Alex asked, hating himself. Hating that he had let this happen, hating that he didn’t know how to do this. Aaron was the one who had built up a collection of medical supplies, the one who knew how to use them. Alex was three years older but still didn’t have a clue how to help.

 

“Alex, for real, I’m alright.”

 

“I’ll believe that when I see it.” Alex said firmly. And from Aaron’s averted eyes, he knew that he wouldn’t be believing it any time soon. 

 

Aaron sighed. Finally he spoke. “The bandages are in my bag, second pocket on the outside. The alcohol is next to it.” Alexander went where he was directed, the pounding in ears growing louder.  _ This wasn’t stuff you would need for ‘it’s nothing’.  _

 

Wincing, Aaron tugged his shirt up, letting Alex see his back, and _ Alex was going to kill them.  _  It took all of his self-restraint not to run, not to go down the stairs and yell and fight and  _ kill _ . And under normal circumstances, Alex would have been scared of the depth of his anger; he had seen so much anger, and knew how it ended, knew how dangerous anger could be. But what perhaps should have been worrisome than Alex’s anger was the way that he wasn’t scared by it, that he felt no desire to control it. He was angry in a way that could only end in someone being hurt, and he didn’t care.

 

Alex shook his head. Of course he was angry. He had the right to be angry over the fact that someone had  _ fucking hit Aaron with a goddamn belt. _

 

“Alex.” Aaron looked scared, obviously having seen Alexander’s expression, and that cut through the fog of anger. Maybe the anger was justified, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t still dangerous. “Alex, I’ll be alright. You--you look like you’re going to kill someone, and--you’re going to get hurt if you go downstairs. This isn’t--it’s not that bad. You’ve had worse.” And maybe Alex had had worse. Maybe Aaron was right.  _ But that didn’t mean that the three stripes carved into Aaron’s back were any more acceptable.  _

 

So Alex did what he could, trying to ignore Aaron’s gritted teeth as he cleaned the cuts. He was shit at medical stuff, but there was no one else to help.

 

And once he had done the best he could, once Aaron had told him repeatedly that  _ Yes, Alex, you’ve done everything you can. I’m fine _ , once Alex had promised Aaron that he would be careful, Alex stepped out of their room, gently closed the door behind him, and ran down the stairs.

 

* * *

“You promised.” Alex said, coming down the stairs and into the room where the two people who called themselves parents were sitting on a couch together, looking so  _ perfect  _ that Alex wanted to throw up. “You fucking promised. You said you wouldn’t hurt him.” His voice shook, and they exchanged a glance.  And  _ fuck them,  _ fuck their perfection, fuck them for looking so unlike the reason behind Alex’s broken ribs and the stripes carved into Aaron’s back.  _ Fuck them. _

 

“Alexander.” It was his name, but it was enough to take away his confidence, the knowledge that  _ I am right, I am right to be angry _ . Enough to make Alex feel ridiculous for standing here, for yelling at this perfect, golden couple who had taken him and Aaron in.

 

Enough to make him flinch back in fear of the pain he knew was coming. 

 

“Fuck you.” Alex managed, trying to regain control. He forced himself to take a step forward, and then another and then another, until he was pacing around the room. Movement , he had found, was a small source of power, a small way to take a little control over a situation. Gaining momentum, he raised his voice.

 

“If he is ever hurt again-- _ I don’t care how badly _ \--If he is hurt  _ in the slightest way _ because of you, we leave.” The man who claimed to be their foster father opened his mouth to speak, but Alex cut him off. “I don’t care that you ‘took us in’ or that ‘no one else wanted us.’ You hit Aaron with a fucking belt. For christ’s sake--He’s  _ thirteen _ .” Alex paused, heart pounding. “So yeah. Fuck you.”

 

Suddenly Alexander is flat on his back, all of the wind knocked out of him. He closes his eyes, bracing himself for whatever is coming.

 

He doesn’t know how many times he is hit. He does know that he’ll be ok. It hurts--hurts like hell--but he has had so much worse. This is survivable. Perhaps it is even fair, or if not fair, what he expected. It isn’t a belt, isn’t anything that will do serious damage. He’ll be ok.

 

“Next time he’s hurt, we leave.” Alexander spits as he leaves the room. But as he stops on the stairs--as he braces himself against the wall, out of sight--as he tries come up with an answer for how the hell he’s going to explain this to Aaron, a part of him begins to how much longer he can go on like this.

 

 

 

 

 


	8. Meet me inside

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Xander get detention

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEy look who's still alive  
> Sorry for disappearing for two months I'll try to write the next chapter faster.  
> Um, I was rereading the earlier parts of this fic, and it is TRASH. Like, cringey as fuck, and also so inconsistent? Like I said that John and Laf and Hercules were Juniors but they're the same age as Ham and he's applied to colleges? So yeah they're all seniors  
> Also I mentioned Martha and Burr in the first chapter and that was bad and I actually also said that Thomas had a dog? Who I may have forgot about? So sorry this fic is absolute shit I'm so very sorry  
> Also this chapter might suck  
> If it does I'll take it down and fix it in the morning but right now I really wanna publish because it's been more than two months(I promise this isn't going to be a regular thing I'm going to get my shit together) OK I love you guys so much thank you thank you thank you  
> TRIGGER WARNING for child abuse  
> Oh! Last thing: There was this wonderful fic called Bravery of a Little Lion that I read on here a couple months ago and it's deleted now, but I was wondering if anyone has it downloaded? (I know, it's a long shot, but I'm desperate)

There were times when Alexander couldn’t believe how fucking  _ clueless _ some people could be.

Like when Washington seemed to think that a useful thing to do was to call Alexander into his office to talk about missing assignments.

And of course, it happened towards the end of school, when Alex  _ was actually in kind of a hurry _ because he didn’t want to  _ miss his goddamn bus _ .

And Washington had just  _ had _ to look irritated when he had asked Alexander to come to his office, had to look angry enough that even before the fucking words  _ I need to see you in my office _ , alarm bells were already ringing in Alex’s head.

And the office was windowless. Of course.

Maybe it wasn’t people in general who were clueless. Maybe just Washington. Oh, and the idiot who had decided to build a  _ windowless fucking office _ that looked far too familiar for Alex’s liking.

Washington looked up from his desk, which was facing Alexander. As though the whole thing wasn’t fucking terrifying enough without making it seem like an interrogation.  

“So, Alexander--” and Alex  _ definitely  _ didn’t flinch at the use of his full name “--you’re missing basically all of the homework assignments from math, more from English than Lee would like, several from chemistry and history, and a few from my class,” Washington said, and Alexander took a breath, trying to focus. Trying to control his breathing, which was far too quick to be good. Trying to keep from curling up into a ball and waiting for the pain to come.

A minute passed, then another, at which point Alex realized that Washington was waiting for him to respond.

Which was all well and good, except for the fact that Alexander didn’t trust himself to speak, given the whole office-no windows-angry teacher situation.

And he knew, logically, that this was a not a situation that should scare him, that  _ nothing was going to happen _ , that he was in school, not at home.

But sometimes, logic didn’t help, and so he tried to focus on the stack of textbooks behind Washington and waited.

Washington cleared his throat. “So...Is there a reason that the assignments are missing?”

“Besides the fact that I didn’t do them? No,” Alex said, his heart beating too quickly, and then he realized what he had said and  _ shit _ . Because no matter how much this felt like he was home, or at whatever place he had called home before this, or the one before that and--he wasn’t, he was at school talking to a teacher, which meant that there  _ very much was a way to make it worse _ , he couldn’t just say whatever the hell he wanted because this still could get worse.

Washington could call home about the missing assignments.

Alex sat up straighter in his chair, and he knew he should apologize, but also knew that if he said the words  _ I’m sorry _ in this tiny, windowless office, he would lose whatever thin hold he had over the situation.

For an instant, Washington looked taken aback, but he quickly recomposed himself. “Alright, well, Mr. Williams is willing to let you make up the math assignments, as long as you turn them in by the end of the semester. He won’t take off points, so that will be ok, son. ”

And of course, one word was enough to fucking destroy Alex’s control, and he couldn’t help but flinch back, and  _ how goddamn hard would it be to just call him Alex. _

Washingtons was looking at him again, which didn’t help, only brought back the memories of identical offices and--The asshole who designed this office really needed to be shot--and fuck, everything already hurt so much, he wasn’t sure if he could handle more pain and--

_ Damn it, Alexander, focus.  _ Right, there were textbooks on the desk,  _ school _ .

“Please don’t call me that,” Alex muttered. Jesus, if a word could do this to him how the hell was he going to survive another six months?

Thank god that Washington understood him the first time, that Alex didn’t have to repeat his request, and thank god that Washington didn’t seem offended or annoyed; Instead, he apologized, making eye contact with Alex while he did. Alex looked away.

Thinking that he should probably do something to make sure Washington didn’t think he was stoned or, like, desperately trying to avoid a panic attack, Alex spoke again. “What about the other classes?”

“Ms. Allen has her policy against late work, but said that she would let you do an alternate assignment, maybe write a paper or something to make up the points. And your history teacher--Mr Reyes?--said that you can turn the work in anytime this month. ”

Well, Alexander didn’t know when he was going to get it all done, given that he was at the restaurant every day after school, but he supposed he could just do it when he got home and go to sleep even later. And do more on the weekends, although between debate competitions and the extra band rehearsals, he didn’t--  

He’d figure it out, somehow.

Alex had always had trouble getting his work done on time, especially when it came to writing assignments. He loved writing papers, but also hated it, because each one had to be  _ perfect _ . If there was a mistake, a blocky sentence or a paragraph that didn’t flow quite right, it meant...It meant nothing, Alex knew this. But it also meant that he had messed up, that he had failed at the one thing he was supposed to be good at.  (“Alex, you’re the only person in the entire world who can go from a missing comma to self-hatred so quickly.” Aaron had said when Alexander had explained it.) But it didn’t matter; If Alexander was going to hand it in, it had to be perfect. This left him working on one paper all night, knowing that he needed to sleep but knowing even more that he needed to finish this. And then, well, spending twelve hours on assignment was not a recipe for getting everything done.

“The assignments you’ve missed in my class aren’t worth a lot of points, so as long as you get the other work done, you don’t have to worry about those.” Washington said. Alexander glanced up at him.

“What about Lee?”

Washington looked down, hesitating. “Well, Lee is...he’s not going out of his way to make it easy for you.” This, Alexander thought, was a far too fair description of Lee.

“What does he want me to do?” Alex asked, dreading the reply.

Washington looked at him. “Lee wanted you to come in after school twice a week to make up the work. I called your parents to see if this would be alright, and they said you had work--”

Alex imagined that his heart actually stopped beating. Except if it did, then he wouldn’t have to go through whatever was going to happen because Washington thought calling his parents was a fucking good idea. Either Washington was a complete idiot, or he had done it on purpose, but no, there was no fucking way he had done it on purpose. He couldn’t have, which was really goddamn helpful right now, because there was no way for Alex to deal with this. He couldn’t even begin to picture what was going to happen--no, he could, and if he had thought that  _ today _ had hurt--

Washington was somehow still talking when he noticed that Alex had stood up, and in that moment, Alex hated Washington  _ so much. _

“Alexander, is something wrong?” Washington asked, and Alex almost laughed out loud.

“Of course something’s wrong! What, did you not think it wouldn’t be?” He asked, and Washington looked somewhere between concerned and affronted, but who cared about how angry Washington was? Washington could go to hell.

“If you sit down, we can try to work this out, son.” Washington said, and the last bits of Alex’s control broke.

“For fuck’s sake, don’t call me that!” And Alex could see Washington’s eyes harden and he knew that he had crossed a line.

“Detention, Alexander,” Washington said. “You’re a really good kid, but you have  _ got _ to stop swearing at teachers. Someone as bright as you, you’re going to go to college, you’re going to go places, but you have  _ got  _ to learn to control your temper.”

Well, that was just great. Detention on top of everything. Except--Alex glanced at the clock. Shit. Work.

Suddenly, Alex’s anger gave way, leaving him with guilt about not being able to get to the restaurant and a strange combination of dread and terror for whatever the hell was going to happen to him later.

Alex watched Washington for a moment before sighing. “Can I--I’m supposed to go to work now, can I call and tell them that I can’t make it today?” he asked. Washington looked at him with something that might have been guilt-- _ What, knowing that Alex had an afterschool job changed everything? Now Washington felt guilty about having given him a detention? Screw him. _

“Of course. Here, you can use this one,” Washington said, pushing the phone on his desk towards Alexander. Alexander slowly picked it up, the old phone awkward in his hands. Thank god he had memorized Lily and James’ number.

The phone rang just long to make Alex worry before he heard the click of an answer.

“Hello?” Lily’s voice said into the phone.

“Hey, it’s Alexander.” Alex said, aware of Washington’s eyes on him. “I’m sorry, I can’t--can’t come into work today.” He glanced at Washington. “I got detention.” Alex finished.

A laugh that was unmistakeable James’ echoed into the phone, followed by a loud, “Congratulations!” Lily sighed, and then James was talking into the phone.

“Well done, well done, well  _ done _ .” James said, and Alex could hear him grinning. “We’ll be fine, something’s going on at the restaurant across from us so it’s going to be a slow night anyways.” 

Lily’s voice echoed in the background. “For god’s sake, James, don’t encourage him.” James laughed again, then passed the phone back to Lily. Alex apologized again, and Lily laughed and assured him that it was fine.

If only everyone could be like Lily and James.

* * *

Alex was halfway down the hall when he heard Thomas call his name.

“Alexander!”  Alex spun around.

“Hey, Jefferson.” 

“So--You got detention, right?” Thomas asked.

“Yeah.” 

“Shit, man.” Thomas was looking at Alexander with a concerned expression that Alex did not appreciate. A moment passed, then another.

“So, did you just miss the pleasure of my company, or are you here for a reason?” Alex asked, annoyed.

“Oh, well, I thought…” Thomas started.  Alexander sighed in exasperation. 

“You thought what, exactly?”

Thomas straightened up. “Ok, so I thought it’s most likely going to be pretty shitty when you get home tonight, and I think you shouldn’t go home at all, you should come to my house and call your social worker and tell them that you can’t go back. But if you don’t do that, well, my parents are away again, Aaron can come stay at my place.” 

Alexander looked at him for a moment, vaguely surprised that Thomas had that level of thoughtfulness in him. “Thanks, that would...be really helpful,” Alex muttered.

“So you won’t come as well.” Thomas said. Alexander shifted the books in his arms.

“I fucked up; I can deal with the consequences.” Alex said. Thomas looked around the hall, then turned back to Alexander.

“Dude, what the hell? You aren’t dealing with consequences, you’re dealing with bullshit. What, you think it’s normal to have to send your little brother out of the house because you got detention and are scared that he’s going to get hurt? No! Seriously, what the fuck?” 

Alex sighed again. “Fine. Maybe it’s not my fault, maybe it’s Washington’s, for calling my fucking parents. Or how about Lee, for causing Washington to call? It doesn’t matter if it’s consequences or bullshit, Jefferson, whether it’s my fault or not. I still have to deal with it, and I will deal with it. I’m not going to just fucking run away.”

Thomas shook his head in a way that made Alex want to punch him. “You blame the wrong people.” 

“Yeah, thanks. Can you just--can you pick Aaron up at three thirty at the middle school?” Alex asked tiredly. 

“Yeah, ok.” Thomas said, letting the other subject drop. And even though Alex thought he had won the argument, it still felt like losing.

However, he had bigger problems than Thomas.

Because walking into the gym for detention was like taking the most stressful thing a high schooler could do and multiplying it by thirty three.

Maybe if Alex had planned ahead a bit more, he could have avoided some of the immense social awkwardness, but he had been a little too busy thinking about other things to worry about this. As he walked into the gym, balancing four textbooks and a pencil case in his arms, and was immediately faced with the dilemma of  _ where the hell do I sit _ , the situation cut through the fog in Alexander’s head. He stood at the entrance to the gym for a moment too long before a guy in a jacket that seemed far too warm for the weather made eye contact with Alex. Taking this as an invitation,  Alex hurried over and sat down.

“Thanks.”

“No problem,” the other boy said, looking as though he were trying not to smile. Alex glanced down at the ground. “What are you in for?”

“Uh, swearing at a teacher.” Alex said, looking up. The other boy’s eyes lit up.

“Oh! Was it Lee again?” he asked, full-on smiling now.

“No, I--how do you know about that?” Alex said curiously, turning towards him. He blushed.

“My friend is in your English class,” he said. Alex nodded.

“What about you?” Alex asked, picking up his pencil case.

“Oh, I, um, stabbed a kid with a screwdriver.” the boy said. Alex raised an eyebrow, and the guy blushed. “It sounds worse when you say it aloud,” he said, fiddling with the hem of his shirt sleeves. Looking up at Alex’s still-raised eyebrows, the other boy sighed.

“He was making fun of one my friends and we were in shop class and the friend in question wasn’t  _ there _ , and then we were arguing and it’s not  _ my _ fault that he moved just as I chucked a screwdriver at him.” he said. Alex nodded again, because that seemed like the right response. The other boy shifted positions.

“I’m John Laurens, by the way.”

“Alexander Hamilton.” And then a teacher walked by and both boys quickly tried to appear as though they had been doing homework the entire time.

* * *

_ “You blame the wrong people,”  _  Thomas had said, and he had been unquestionably right. It wasn’t Washington’s fault, it wasn’t even Lee’s fault, and it wasn’t Alexander’s fault. Logically, Alex knew full well who’s damn fault it was that he was curled up on the floor wishing he could still pass out from pain. But Alex couldn’t help but wonder if Thomas had been wrong, because the person who deserved the blame didn’t count as a person at all.

It was dumb logic, Alex knew. It didn’t matter how many times someone hit him, how much pain they were willing to cause. That didn’t make them not human. But damn, if one person was willing to do this, then all people must at least be capable of it.

And if everyone was capable of this, then there was no point in fighting back, in telling someone what was going on like Thomas wanted him to, because there would always be more pain waiting. And that, maybe, was what Thomas would never understand, because things like this only happened to certain kinds of people, and Thomas wasn’t one of them. Thomas couldn’t get why Alex wouldn’t try to get away, because he didn’t understand how being hit so many times that your shirt is soaked with blood makes you lose your hope that there is somewhere better.

_ You’ve had worse _ , Alex would sternly tell himself later, but just then, it was too hard to focus on anything other than how much he wanted the pain to go away. Because in the moment, every injury always felt like the worst, and this sure as hell was up there. So Alex bit his lip to keep from crying out and waited, because there was nothing else he could do, nothing but try to absorb the pain that showed no sign of stopping.

Except, eventually, an eternity later, it did. And Alexander was allowed to stay still for a moment, to notice how his mouth was filled with blood, to breathe in the sudden silence. And then, even though every movement hurt more than anything had the right to, Alex managed to climb unsteadily to his feet.. Black spots swirled through his vision, and he leaned against a wall to steady himself. Then, in slow, agonizing steps, he walked towards the door.

“You’re in no condition to go out right now,” said a voice that made Alex flinch from behind him, and Alex bit back the reply that he wanted to say-- _ And whose fucking fault is that? _

_ “ _ I’ll manage,” he said in reply, and then opened the closet with a shaking hand and carefully took out his black winter coat, even though it was surprisingly warm for October. Alex started to put it on and almost blacked out from the pain, but didn’t, only ended up on the floor.

“Son, you really shouldn’t do this.” Because now, it was just concern for Alexander. And maybe it had been all along. Maybe it was Alexander’s own fucking fault. So Alex finished putting the coat on while sitting down, put on his shoes, and then got to his feet and opened the door. He heard a sigh from behind him.

“Neither should you.” Alex said, and then he slammed the door.

* * *

Alex collapsed onto the bench, vision spinning.

Usually, Alex would have followed slamming a door by storming away, by getting into a car, by leaving. Quickly.

This time, Alex had only managed to take a few shaky steps before ending up on the ground next to the front steps. It wasn’t that he couldn’t handle this, it was just--

It just hurt a hell of a lot.

Someone was talking. Alex blinked a couple times, and then realized that the bus driver was asking him if he was going to get on.

Right. There was a bus. He was at a bus stop.

He had to pause while walking onto the bus, and the driver gave him a concerned look.  It was the same bus driver that drove the afternoon bus.  He showed her his bus pass, and then began walking down the aisle, towards his usual seat.

The girl was there. Which made sense, for a moment--until it didn’t. Why was she here, now? 

Something about her seemed different, though. She didn’t have her earbuds in, for one thing. She was holding them in one hand and staring out the window. And she had a black eye.

Then again, Alex had no right to be saying someone else looked different. He was wearing a winter coat and could barely stay upright.

Noticing him, the girl slid over a little bit, making room. Alex sat down, and the bus started moving. And then the girl looked back at Alexander.

“Hey,” she said, and it occurred to Alex that this was the first time he had heard her speak.

“Hey,” he responded, because that seemed like the correct response. Several moments passed, then she looked at him again.

“Did it get worse?” she asked. Alex blinked at her.

“What?” 

She shrugged. “You’re wearing a winter coat in sixty degree weather and are hurt so badly you could barely walk onto the bus. And that’s not even unusual for you.” She paused, looking at him. “You’re pretty shitty at hiding it.” There was no room for questioning what ‘it’ was. Alex watched her for a moment, processing, when something clicked.

“So are you.” 

She shrugged again, giving him a sad smile that told him he’d guessed right. They sat in silence for a few moments, until she spoke again. “Better than you, though.” The girl held out a hand to shake.

“Maria Lewis.” 

“Alexander Hamilton.”  Alex paused. Looked at the way she was sitting, took in the air of  _ something different _ that she still seemed to be carrying. Saw her headphones being held in her hand instead of used. And then the next piece of her story fell into place. “You left.” 

The girl--Maria--raised her eyebrows, then sighed. “Yeah.” 

Alex looked down at his hands. “Wish I could.” She didn’t make him tell her why he couldn’t. Only looked up at him and asked if he had somewhere to go for the night. 

“I…” He thought about Thomas, and then Aaron. “Yeah, I guess. A...classmate. You?”   
  


“A friend of a friend,” she said. They stopped talking, the strangeness of the empty bus filling the air.

When the bus stopped, both of them got off. Alex turned to the Maria.

“Um…” He cleared his throat. “Could I use your phone?” 

“‘Course.” She typed in her passcode and passed the phone to Alex, who called Thomas. Thomas picked up on the first ring.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Thomas.” Alex said tiredly. Fuck, everything hurt.

“Alex! Thank god. Are you ok? Should I come pick you up? Actually-where are you?” Alex could hear muffled voices, then Thomas spoke again. “Hold on, Aaron wants to talk to you. Aaron, tell him he’s an idiot.”

“Alex?” Aaron’s voice was hopeful.

“Hi, Aaron.”

“Are you ok?” Aaron asked. Alex looked around, realizing they were in a park. The streetlamps were on, surrounding the park, and giving the empty playstructure an eerie look.

“Yeah. I’m alright, Aaron.” Alex paused. “I’m ok.” Vision spinning, Alex sat down on the ground.

“Are you coming over here now?” 

“As soon as I figure out where I am.” Alexander promised, meeting Maria’s eyes and holding up a finger.  _ Only one more minute. _ She waved it away.  _ Take as much time as you need. _

“Here’s Thomas. He’s going to come pick you up.” Aaron said, and then Thomas’s voice filled the phone.

“Hey, so do you know where you are?” Thomas asked. “I’m getting in the car now, I’ll come get you.” Alex glanced around, finding the street sign.

“I’m in a park on the corner of Liberty and Seventh street.” Alex said.

“Liberty...Seventh...Ok, got it.” Thomas said. “I’ll be there in--Thirteen minutes.” 

Alex waited, then realized he had no choice. “Thanks.”

“No problem.” 

Alex hit end call, and handed the phone back to Maria. She helped him stand up, and he tried to brush away her help but realized that he actually needed it.

“You’re going to be ok?” she asked. He thought about the question for a moment, thinking that she probably would no longer believe a ‘yes’.

“I hope so,” he said finally. She nodded. “Are you?”   
  


“I...hope so.” Maria said, giving him a half smile. “Hey, do me a favor, ‘k? Get out as soon as you can.” She held up a hand to stop his protests. “It’s not easy, but…” She shrugged. “It’s not fun to be hurt as badly as you are now.” Alex waited a moment, then nodded. Maria looked at him. “Is someone coming to pick you up?” 

“Yeah.” Alex said.

“You trust them?”   
  


“I--yeah. A lot, actually. They’ll be here in ten minutes,” he said.

“Alright.” Maria sat down, then looked up at him. “Don’t want you passing out before your friend gets here.” And since she wouldn’t leave despite Alex’s protests, he sat down next to her. And let himself daydream, for a moment, that he was her, that he was leaving. Until, of course, his spinning vision and aching bruises brought him back to where he was.

* * *

Thomas glanced down at his phone to make sure that he was in the right spot, then parked the car, looking around for Alexander.

There were two people sitting on the ground a little ways away. Thomas jogged over, holding his phone. As he got closer, he could see that Alexander was sitting next to a girl who Thomas didn’t recognize.

As he walked up to them, the girl stood up, and stepping slightly in front of Alexander. Alex stood up quickly, wincing.

“Hey, Thomas,” Alex said, and the girl seemed to relax slightly, taking a step back.

Thomas looked at her, than back at Alex, but Alex didn’t introduce the girl and the girl didn’t introduce herself, so Thomas spoke. “Are you--alright?” he asked. 

“Yeah. I’m fine,” Alex said, his voice tired. He turned to the girl. “You good?”

“Yeah, I’m going to walk--to my friend’s house, she lives really close.” 

Alex nodded. “Ok. I...hope it works out,” he said. The girl looked at him for a moment.

“I do, too,” she said finally. “And--”  She looked like she was going to say something else, but then shook her head. She have a half-smile, and walked away.

Alex turned to Thomas. “Let’s go.” Thomas obliged, the two of them walking towards the car. 

“Who’s she?” 

“A friend.” Alex replied. Thomas nodded, as though this explained everything. Then he noticed the way Alex was walking.

“Dude, you ok?” Thomas asked. Alex ignored the question, which Thomas thought counted as an answer. “Ok, so you’re not. What happened?” Alexander glared at him. “You know, if you told me I might actually be able to help.” Alexander continued to glare at Thomas, and muttered something that sounded like, ‘fuck you.’ Thomas put his hands up in mocks surrender. “Ok, ok.” He glanced up at the sky. “How ‘bout them Seahawks?” Alex gave him another disgusted look, and Thomas decided that perhaps they should walk in silence.

They arrived at the car a few minutes later, and Thomas unlocked it, watching Alexander get in. For the first time, Thomas realized that Alexander was wearing a winter coat.

“Hey, what’s with the coat?” he asked. 

“What the fuck do you think?” What--Oh.

Oh. That was...Something that shouldn’t have come as a surprise but somehow still did.

“Aren’t you really hot, though?” Thomas couldn’t resist asking. Alexander looked at him.

“You know, on the list of things I’m worried about right now, that one ranks pretty far down the list.” Alex said. And Thomas needed to shut up five minutes ago.

Several minutes passed in silence, until Alexander leaned forward and turned the radio on, filling the car with the electronic beat of Closer.

“Why the fuck are they still playing this?’ Alex said, disgusted, switching the radio station. He turned to Thomas. “I mean, does  _ anyone _ want to hear that?”

It was, perhaps, the most effective subject change Thomas had ever seen Alexander do. 

The radio station was telling a story about the latest crazy thing Trump had said, although Thomas didn’t hear very much of it, as Alexander spent the entire time making comments. And he sounded ok. Tired, yeah, but alright.

Until they pulled into the driveway, and Thomas was opening the car door when Alex stopped him.

“Please. Just one minute. I can’t--not yet.” And Thomas didn’t understand, not until he saw Alexander’s eyes, which were practically pleading with him to understand, and realized that Alexander would never want anyone to see him hurt. And that maybe Thomas didn’t count, because in the end, Thomas was kind of irrelevant to this, but the thirteen year old boy waiting inside certainly  _ wasn’t _ . 

Alex’s head was in his hands, and Thomas could hear him breathing shallowly, as though each breath hurt. And then Alexander looked up again, and Thomas realized that he might have been irrelevant to this in the end, but it still was killing Alexander to have to do this, to have to seem-- hurt, in front of Thomas. To have to let Thomas see this part of him, the part that wasn’t cursing out the radio or telling Thomas to go fuck himself, but the part that could barely breath because it hurt too much.

And so Thomas waited in silence, watched as Alexander lifted his head and took a breath, collecting himself. Watched Alexander hide this other version of himself as he became the person he was willing to show to the world again. 

“Let’s go,” Alex said, and he opened his door, walking halfway down the path before turning back. “You coming?”

Thomas got out of the car and followed.

* * *

Thomas knocked on the door for the second time, balancing the stuff in his other hand against his knee. When there was no response, he cracked open the door with his free hand and peered inside.

“Alexander?” he asked quietly.

Alexander was lying  on his stomach, writing furiously into a notebook. He didn’t look up.

“Alex.” Thomas said, a little louder. This seemed to catch Alexander’s attention.

“What--Oh, it’s you.” Alex said, turning back to his notebook. Thomas stepped into the room and shut the door behind him.

“I brought food.” Thomas said, setting the plate down on the ground. Alexander ignored him. “Also, some painkillers and a pencil sharpener.”

“Thanks.” Alexander said without looking up. 

“You’re not going to eat it, are you.” 

“The pencil sharpener? I mean, I wasn’t exactly planning on it, but if it means so much to you…” Alex paused his writing for a moment, the pencil hovering over the page. Then he started furiously erasing something.

“Come on, Alexander.” At this, Alex finally looked up.

“The hell are you trying to do? Take care of me? I can take perfectly fucking good care of myself. And right now, I need to finish this essay, because Lee decided that it was due tomorrow. It’s not your fucking job to make sure I eat, Thomas.” Alex said.

“You put the coat back on.” Briefly, Alexander had taken off the coat, exchanging it for a sweater he had borrowed from Thomas. 

“Yeah, well, it’s fucking cold in here.” Alex turned back to his notebook. Thomas thought for a moment, then decided that yes, Alexander probably was cold, because not eating fucked with your ability to stay warm.

And Thomas couldn’t help but wonder why Alexander did this, why he wasn’t doing everything he could in order to get out. Wondered what could possibly make this worth it.

“What the hell happened tonight?” Thomas asked in a low voice. 

Alex looked up, and something had changed, his eyes now deadly instead of deflecting. “Nothing that would make sense to you. Why the  _ fuck _ do you keep asking?”

“Because--” Thomas paused, then spoke again carefully. “Because you’re the only person who knows, and there’s no  _ way _ that that can be good for you, to know that no one knows how badly you’re hurt except for you.”

Thomas watched Alexander’s expression, hoping to hell that something had registered with the other boy. 

“Yeah, well, I’m sure as shit not the only person who knows,” Alex muttered, and Thomas felt his heart clench. Alex sighed. “You really want to know? You want to know how I got home from school and hid in my room for  _ hours _ ? How even after that whole show I put on at school about ‘I can deal with the consequences”, I still can’t? How when they finally made me come down I could barely get down the stairs because I was so fucking terrified? How he hit me until I couldn’t  _ think _ , how I almost passed out on the front steps because it hurt so  _ fucking much _ ? How before I left, he acted  _ worried  _ about me, how he called me  _ son _ \--” Alex’s voice was filled with disgust. There was something vulnerable in his eyes that Thomas hadn’t seen before. Alex looked away for a moment before speaking again, his voice barely a whisper. “How I’m starting to think that he’s right, that this is fair.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK thank you so so so much for reading you guys rock  
> Pleeeease let me know how it was did it suck? Was it cringey? Did it not make sense? How bad was the grammar?  
> Oh! Polling question that has relevancy for where this fic is gonna go: On a scale of one to ten, ten being you value it the most and one being you don't care, how much do you guys value realism? And, um, if I wrote a weird foster care/reincarnation combo au fic would yall read it? (You can say no)  
> Thank you so much you guys are actually the best


	9. Gasoline

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Alex and Eliza meet, some explanations occur, I fuck up some grammar, and there's a dog.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey!  
> So, I finally finished this. It's too many words, and I'm not thrilled with it, but here it is.  
> I don't think there are any trigger warnings that apply to this chapter and not the entire fic. There's an overtone of hopelessness that might not be great, especially if you're in a situation like Alex's, so I guess be careful? I didn't end this chapter on a happy note, which I usually try to do, so I'm sorry about that.  
> Let me know if you can figure out the chapter title. (Please let me know--I still haven't quite figured it out myself.)  
> Thanks for reading!  
> (Also, one of Theodosia's lines is completely stolen from Rewind, Reprise, Repeat by a_mind_at_work (Madame_Marauder. It's an excellent fic. Go read it.)

There were only ten minutes to the final bell when Angelica invited Alexander over.

 

“Hey, you want to come over after school? Bring your trumpet, we could practice together, do some homework, work on that debate assignment...” Her voice drifted off.

 

Usually, Alexander would have had to say no, but today? The restaurant was closed--something about Lily having a doctor’s appointment?--and given what had happened last night, Alexander was in no particular hurry to get home. He didn’t want Aaron to be there alone, but he had decided that he didn’t want Aaron there at  _ all _ , so Aaron was going to a friend’s tonight, someone who wasn’t Thomas for once. A girl’s house, actually, someone named Theodosia, which had caused Alexander to raise his eyebrows and Aaron to tell him to shut up.

 

So anyway, he had planned on going to the public library or something, anything to avoid going home. But Angelica was fun to be around, and they did need to work on their argument for debate, and so Alexander said yes.

  
  


* * *

 

Eliza woke up to a trumpet playing scales.

A glance at her phone told her that it was six in the evening. Which, ok, maybe it was her fault for falling asleep at six. But couldn’t Angelica have at least practiced upstairs, instead of in the room right next to Eliza’s?

 

Eliza looked down at her homework, which she had been doing before falling asleep. She hadn’t  _ meant _ to fall asleep, but new schools were stressful, and she hadn’t slept much the night before, and math homework was boring as hell.  She looked at the problems for a few minutes before deciding that there was no way she could work with Angelica practicing trumpet in the room over, and so she stood up, walking out of her room to give Angelica a piece of her mind.

 

“Angelica, couldn’t you have gone upstairs, or at least--” Eliza started, pushing open the door to Angelica’s room. She stopped speaking when she saw the other person in the room.

 

Her first thought was that he hadn’t changed, not really. He was a bit taller and his hair was definitely longer--(God, he looked  _ weird _ with long hair)--but apart from that, he seemed the same, down to the clothes, which looked weirdly familiar.

 

Her second thought was that this was a dream. That it was going to be one of  _ those _ dreams, the ones that usually ended when Angie heard her crying out and came to wake her up.

 

(Eliza had always hated that she talked in her sleep, but she couldn’t help it. It was, incidentally, the way that Angelica had figured out what had happened before they met.)

 

So Eliza took a breath and started going through the tricks Angelica had taught her to figure out if something was a dream. Counting fingers, checking the time, all the things that don’t work in dreams. Except nothing was working, and Eliza could feel herself starting to panic, because  _ this was real _ .

 

She noticed that he had backed up into the wall, and Eliza instinctively looked over her shoulder, because there was always someone creeping up behind her in these dreams. But there was no one there.

 

“What the hell just happened?” Angelica’s voice broke the silence, and Angelica never spoke in Eliza’s dreams, and suddenly, she believed it was real.   
  


He was here. For god-knows-what-reason, he was standing in Angelica’s room, holding a trumpet in one hand and staring at her as though she were the first sign of the apocalypse.

 

Angelica was looking from Eliza to Alex, clearly wondering why they were both acting like the world was ending, and then her eyes widened and she covered her mouth with her hand.

 

And Eliza and Alex were still staring at each other, and then, suddenly, Alex started laughing.

 

“This,” he said, “Is the weirdest goddamn dream I’ve had yet.” And then Eliza started laughing too, because, yeah, it felt pretty real, but how the  _ hell _ had the two of them ended standing in Angelica’s room two thousand miles away from where they had started? Alex looked directly at Eliza. “Except it isn’t a dream, is it?” he asked.

 

“No,” Eliza said. “I don’t think it is.”

 

“She’s not about to come running through the door?”

 

Eliza looked behind her again, because she was still half-expecting that herself, but then she looked back at Alex, and then they were hugging, because he was  _ here _ , he was alive, and they were safe. Finally, they were safe. 

 

When she let go, Alex was still staring at her. “You got out,” he said, his voice soft. “I thought--they wouldn’t tell me what happened to you. Wouldn’t deliver my letters. I thought you might never--” He didn’t finish the sentence.

 

She didn’t know how to respond to that. How was she supposed to tell him that she had thought she might never get out, either? 

 

But he was here, now. Two thousand miles and four years later, they had made it.

 

“How long…” Alex took a breath, not meeting her eyes. “How long were you there, after--”  _ After you left. _ But he hadn’t left, because  _ left  _ sounded voluntary, and she had  _ been there _ , had seen how damn hard he had fought to stay. Which was why the sudden spear of anger that hit her seemed so unfair, because  _ how could she blame him? _

 

Eliza closed her eyes, opened them, and spoke while staring at her feet. “A year.” She kept her eyes down, not wanting to have to see the destruction in Alex’s eyes, to see him trying to imagine it. She had seen Angie do that enough times. “Alex--”  _ It’s not your fault. _ She didn’t know why the words were sticking in her throat. It wasn’t his fault, not at all. There was no fair or logical way to blame him. And it wasn’t like anything would have been better if he had been there. Finally, she looked up, and oh god, she wasn’t sure if she had ever seen anyone look as utterly devastated as Alexander did just then. He was leaning against the wall, and suddenly, he slid to the ground.

 

“‘Liza, I-- _ fuck,  _ I’m so, so sorry, I--” His voice broke, and Eliza’s anger faded. 

 

“Wait,” Angelica spoke for the first time, holding up a hand. She looked directly at Alex, her expression hard. “You  _ left? _ You left her there,  _ alone _ ?” At that, Alex seemed to shatter. For once, his words seemed to be gone.

 

Eliza suddenly recovered her senses. “Angie, no, it wasn’t like that. He didn’t have a choice.”

 

Angelica’s eyes were still cold. “How the hell didn’t he have a choice, Eliza? You  _ always _ have a choice.” Alex seemed to curl in on himself, as though he were trying to take up as little space as possible.

 

“You don’t always have a choice, Angelica, and he sure as hell didn’t,” Eliza said, torn between wanting Angelica to understand and three years of trying to keep as many details secret as possible.

 

“I should have--I should have done  _ something _ .” Alex’s voice broke. “She’s right, you always have a choice, I could have done more--I did  _ nothing. _ ”

 

Angelica was glaring at him again, which was clearly not helping. “Angelica, stop glaring at him. I’ll--I’ll explain later.” Angelica clearly didn’t like it, but she let her expression change from anger to neutrality. 

 

Alex was looking at Eliza, and something seemed completely  _ broken _ in his eyes. For a moment, she couldn’t remember ever seeing him like this before. Then she thought of the last night, the one where he left, and realized that she had.

  
  


“Alex,” Eliza said quietly, because she knew firsthand how self-destructive Alex could be when he got like this.  “Remember when we first met?”

 

Alexander looked at her in confusion. “You--wait, that was when you cornered me in a hallway and told me not to fuck anything up, right? And you were explaining to me what I should and shouldn’t do, and then you figured out I spoke about six words of English?”

 

“Yeah. And then--” Eliza paused, looking at Alexander. And she wasn’t quite sure why she had brought it up, but now that she had, something was starting to make sense. Because that thought in the back of her mind, that this whole thing seemed oddly familiar--that  _ Alexander _ seemed so familiar, even though four years had passed, there must have been a reason for it. And maybe there was. 

 

“‘Liza?” Angelica asked, but Eliza didn’t respond. 

 

He had told her, once, about the house he had stayed at before meeting Eliza. He had told the story in the same way Eliza always told Angie about her life  _ before _ \--detached, quick, to the point. Not wasting any words, not letting the story last any longer than it had to. But even as quickly as Alexander had tried to tell it, it had still been enough to explain that first time Eliza had met him. It had explained the way he held himself, the way he had been so careful not to do anything wrong. It had explained why he had spent as little time standing as possible, leaning against a wall or sitting down so he didn’t have to put weight on whatever was hurting him. It had explained his clothes, his shirts that didn’t quite fit but could hide anything, had explained why he seemed so afraid, had explained why he had accepted everything Eliza said without question.

 

She looked at him again, looked at where he was sitting on the ground. She thought back to earlier, when he had been leaning against the wall, and took in the clothes he was wearing, looked at the thing that was becoming more and more obvious. Because most things, they could be chalked up to coincidences. But his eyes, his eyes and his expression, that just made Eliza certain of what she was seeing. Because she had seen a lot of things in the four years since Alexander had left, but she hadn’t seen that same expression, the look of someone hiding pain that no one else was supposed to see, anywhere except for the mirror.

 

“Are you ok?” Eliza asked Alexander. He didn’t respond, but the look on his face made Eliza certain she had guessed right. “You’re not, are you? Right now--you’re no better off than you were four years ago.”

 

“No.” Alexander said quietly. “No, it’s not nearly that bad. Not even close.”

 

“That doesn’t mean it isn’t bad, though.” Eliza persisted, ignoring Angelica’s look of utter confusion at how quickly the conversation had changed. It was something she and Alexander had both learned, how to have most of a conversation nonverbally.

  
  


Alex glanced at Angelica, who brought her confused expression back into a glare, and he looked away. “What happened, after?” he asked desperately. And it was one of the most obvious subject changes Eliza had heard, but she knew that trying to get information out of Alex that he didn’t want to give would be impossible. Besides, she couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to him afterwards, what the last four years had looked like for him.

 

God, how had this happened? How had she ended up with no information, no idea what happened to this person she had gone through so much with?

 

So Eliza met his eyes-- _ I know you’re distracting me; this isn’t over _ , she hoped her eyes said--and then she started talking. She skipped the first bit, the obvious starting place of Alexander leaving, and picked up her story about a year later. She talked about an old couple that had wanted a daughter, but not  _ her _ , not someone who couldn’t be in the room with a candle without panicking. How she had only stayed with them for a couple weeks before coming down with  _ something _ , she hadn’t quite known what--some sickness that had sent her to the hospital, something that she still privately imagined as the last piece of her soul shattering. How she had woken up to an excited girl with two parents telling her to calm down, the poor girl is still sick. How the bouncing girl in the lime green hijab had introduced herself as Angelica, and had informed Eliza that they were sisters now.

 

She talked about going home, to a house in New York that had taken weeks to feel like home. About how Angelica had turned out to be more than a fourteen year old girl excited to have a sister, had turned out to be a friend who was willing--more than willing, completely and utterly  _ set _ on it, on making sure that Eliza was, if not ok at the moment, that she would be. That she knew that she wasn’t going to leave unless she wanted to, that she understood that no one was going to hurt her. And when Eliza slowly started to spill some of her past, Angelica listened, not pushing her to tell more, just taking what Eliza gave. When Eliza had softly talked about her life  _ before _ , when she had talked about who her parents had been, she found that she was able to talk about it, more than she ever had been before. And so she had told Angelica about what her world had looked like, about what things she had liked to do and what traditions they had followed and even about the religion that Eliza had spent eleven years of her life observing. And when Angelica asked if she would like to try it again, had told her that, if she wanted to, they could easily make it work, Eliza had thought about it for a couple days, then surprised even herself by saying  _ yes _ .

 

She tried to talk about the night Alexander left, and what had followed, but found she couldn’t. So she moved on.

 

She told Alexander about someone else, about the thirteen year old currently doing homework a floor below them. She told him how, when Peggy came, it finally felt like she was home. How Peggy completed whatever it was that worked with Angelica and Eliza, had changed them from friends to siblings.

 

Finally she told him about moving from New York to this odd town just far enough from the sea to be conservative. And then, with her voice aching from talking so much, she looked him in the eyes.  _ Your turn. _

 

So Alexander started talking. What he would have said, though, Eliza had no idea, because the watch on her hand beeped just then. 

 

“What time is it?” Alex asked, something strange in his voice.

 

Eliza glanced down. “Nine.” And it was only when Alex’s eyes widened and he started cursing that she realized that thing in his voice was fear.

 

“I’m not--we’ll talk again, ok?” Alex promised. “I mean, if you want to. If you want to never see me again--I get that, too.” And then, without waiting for a response, he almost ran down the stairs and out the door.

 

* * *

 

For reasons that Martha Dandridge had yet to understand, she had somehow ended up with three children. Which was fine, it wasn’t like three kids was an unreasonable number, but she had never really meant to have even one. She wasn’t particularly opposed to children in general--sure, they were sort of intolerable when they were little, always crying and screaming for god-knows-what, and toddlers were kind of the worst, what with being so manipulative it was lucky they hadn’t achieved world dominion yet, and actually, they didn’t really get better when they became middle schoolers--it was a universally agreed upon fact that middle schoolers were just the worst. Even middle schoolers hated middle schoolers. And high school kids weren’t all that great either, given that they were always either stressed out or self-centered or pissed off or all three. Even once kids weren’t really kids anymore, were college students worthwhile human beings? And honestly, adults kind of sucked, too.

 

But anyway, it wasn’t that Martha didn’t like kids. She just hadn’t ever pictured herself having them.

 

To be fair, Theo was the only one who was technically Martha’s kid. But until Martha figured out where the hell Maria’s parents were, and why Aaron never seemed to want to go home, they were her kids.

 

Actually, Martha no longer gave a fuck where Maria’s parents were. They had lost their right to their daughter years ago.

 

(Well, she wouldn’t mind yelling at them for a bit, possibly threatening them and maybe breaking a couple of their valuable china plates.)

 

(She might also break the teacups. )

 

So it probably wouldn’t be bad to find them. And whatever was going on with Aaron--Theo had met him at school, and Martha was glad, because they had become friends so fast that it had that feeling of  _ meant to be _ . He had come home with Theo after school a couple of times and the two of them usually played board games, mostly Monopoly and chess. Sometimes the two of them were joined by Theo’s friend Frances Laurens, and Martha was mostly just happy that the three of them seemed got along, that Theo was happy, and that none of them were getting arrested.

 

And then--it had started with little things, the way that Aaron would never get picked up or let Martha drop him off at home, the way that he seemed to flinch every time Martha raised her voice, the way he would get completely panicked if he realized it was after nine and he was supposed to be home. And it was impossible not to notice the bruises, the way that he sometimes walked as though he was hurt, and Martha was able to put two and two together and understand that Aaron needed to get out of there.

 

Except Martha knew nothing about Aaron except his school, didn’t even know his last name, and had no evidence. She didn’t want to bring it up with Aaron, because she knew him well enough to know that he wouldn’t tell her anything, and she didn’t want to alienate him. Because she didn’t know how bad things were, but she did know that Aaron needed to have somewhere he could go, a place he could stay when he didn’t want to stay at home. And if her house was that place, well, she didn’t want Aaron to lose it because she had asked him a question he didn’t want to answer.

 

So Martha did nothing, until it all became too much and it was so goddamn clear that something was wrong, and it was around then that Maria moved in and suddenly Martha couldn’t handle the fact that Aaron was getting hurt and she wasn’t doing a fucking thing about it. But there were no instructions for this, no magic phone number that would result in someone fixing the situation. She tried calling the police, but it accomplished nothing, and Martha started to wonder if there was anything at all that she could do.

 

There was. There were the small things. She made sure Aaron knew he would always have a place to stay with them. When Theo announced that Aaron was spending the night, Martha set up a room and a bed for him to sleep in. Well, she did the first two times, then after some eye-rolling on Theo’s part and some logic from Martha, she dragged the spare mattress onto the floor of Theo’s room and had Aaron sleep there, because honestly, they were  _ thirteen _ , and also Martha trusted both of them and didn’t even know if they were straight.

 

(And also from a political standpoint the constant fear and control surrounding kids having sex was absolutely ridiculous, like what, a boy and a girl couldn’t be around each other without falling in love and having sex every chance they got?)

 

So now Aaron was one of her kids. Along with Maria, and thank god that she had finally moved in. Knowing that Maria was safe, that Maria was  _ here _ , in the room right down the hall, Martha supposed that if she were religious that would be the kind of thing she’d thank God about.

 

If only the same could be said for Aaron.

 

* * *

 

The next day, predictably, sucked.

 

Alexander could not have said he was surprised.

 

It wasn’t even that the night before had been that bad--it had actually been worryingly easy, and when Alex had walked through the door and up to his room without hearing a word, he couldn’t help but get the sense that it was that moment right before the lightning struck, when the skies were about to open up but all you could see were the clouds.

 

Angelica ignored him; beyond just not speaking to him, she acted like he wasn’t there. Which wouldn’t have hurt so much if he hadn’t already felt so invisible, so-- so  _ something _ , so irrelevant that no one could see how obviously Alexander was falling apart. 

He didn’t know whether or not Eliza had ever told Angelica what had happened. He doubted it mattered. Angelica would have hated him either way. 

 

The sheer amount of probability seeing Eliza must have taken--how the hell had they ended up  _ here _ ?

 

(He could already hear Aaron’s eye roll--something only people with thirteen year old younger brothers knew, eye rolls had a sound. “That doesn’t even make  _ sense _ , Alex, you can’t have an  _ amount of probability _ .”) 

 

Thomas tried to talk to him in chemistry, but Alexander mostly ignored him. Unfair, he knew, given all that Thomas had done, but Alex knew that if he opened his mouth he would break down. So he kept his eyes on the teacher and ignored Thomas until the other boy sighed and grabbed Alexander’s backpack off the ground. At that point, Alex turned to him, pissed, and saw Thomas open his backpack and put a handful of cereal bars in, before turning to Alexander. 

 

“Take them, ok? You don’t have to talk to me, just take them, and eat them. I’ll pick up some more tomorrow.”

 

And Alex wanted to turn it down, but he was really in no position to do so.

 

He couldn’t bring himself say thanks. Idiotic, but if he thanked Thomas he was acknowledging that he had needed help. Somehow, though, he felt that Thomas understood. 

 

Then the bell rang and Alexander was back in the hall.

 

Twelve bells later--Early bell and late bell for each class, and four bells that rang in the middle of sixth hour for no apparent reason--Alexander was walking towards his bus stop, back in the routine that usually was reassuring but today felt like it was crushing him. He didn’t understand why, why now was so different than the past. Why he couldn’t handle the things that he had been fine with before.

 

For some reason that Alexander was honestly too tired to figure out, James and Lily seemed excited and almost giggly when he walked in. Something was going on, and although Alex had no idea what it was, at least something good was happening. 

 

Of course, five minutes after Alex walked in it all went to shit. It should have been nothing, he just tripped and fell, he wasn’t even carrying anything at the time, but his shirt slipped when he got up and he  _ knew _ that James saw. He could see the happiness disappear and watched as a concerned look replaced it, and if Alexander had access to a magic genie he would gladly use all three of his wishes just so that no one would give him those goddamned concerned looks anymore.

 

Well, no, there were a couple other he would use his wishes on. But that wasn’t really the point.

 

But James looked so  _ worried _ , and Alexander’s annoyance changed into guilt because of course he had to go and ruin  _ everything _ . And James and Lily had seemed so happy just moments ago and now they were both worried and god  _ damn  _ it. 

 

So when James asked him if he was ok in that deadly serious voice that James almost never used, Alex just mumbled that he was fine. And then he kept walking and tried to look as though nothing was wrong, except that there actually was something wrong and for some reason he wished he could tell them. For some reason, even though he still knew that he never wanted to see one of those concerned looks again, he didn’t mind James asking if he was ok. And it would be kind of nice to be able to tell him what had happened, why he wasn’t ok, why even just walking hurt. 

 

But that wasn’t an option, so Alexander hid everything behind the expression he’d been using for the past five years and kept going.

 

When he was walking out, James stopped him by the door, and asked it, asked the question that Alex should have been able to respond to but couldn’t. Asked,  _ Do you feel safe at home _ , and Alexander hesitated. He asked Alexander a question where a hesitation was a response, and Alexander  _ didn’t respond _ .

 

And he hated himself for it, hated himself for not laughing and saying that of course he did, for not making James feel ridiculous for asking. 

 

He had shrugged. He hadn’t looked at James--he didn’t need to see that godawful worried, concerned expression again--had just shrugged, and then walked out.

 

Maybe he hated himself a little less than he would have if he had told James that he was being ridiculous, that of course Alex was safe.

 

But now James had his answer.

 

_ Godammit _ .

  
  


* * *

Alex stepped off of the bus and sat down at the stop.

 

He would start walking in a minute. He just needed...Just one minute. 

One more.

 

And then one more after that.

 

He thought about Angelica, and then about Eliza, and then about Lily and James and suddenly the image of Thomas putting the cereal bars into Alexander’s backpack came back into his head and Alex figured that he could do worse than to eat one of those. He reached into his backpack and took one out.

 

He knew it wasn’t a good idea, knew that once he ate something he would need more, but as soon as he thought of eating he had to. God, he hadn’t eaten in--it must have been at least two days.  So he ate one cereal bar, and then took out a second. He had just unwrapped it when a whining noise came from under the bench and a dog crawled out, staring at Alex with pitiful eyes.

 

It might have been black or brown, but it was hard to tell because it was so dirty. It was a little bigger than a golden retriever, and, judging by how hungry it looked, was stray. Alex looked at it for a moment, then broke of a piece of his cereal bar and gave it to the dog. The dog ate it happily and looked at Alexander for more.

 

Alexander reached into his bag and took out another bar. “Thomas only gave us six,” he told the dog. “You can have one more, but I’ve got to bring some home for Aaron, ok?” The dog cocked his head at Alexander, and Alex felt himself smile, holding out his hand. The dog ate the food and then licked the remains off of Alex’s hand.

 

(He wasn’t an idiot, he knew that giving food to a stray dog was an excellent way to get his hand bitten off, but at least if the dog attacked him he would end up in the hospital and maybe things would be better after that. Or, if he died, well--then it wasn’t his problem anymore.)

 

The dog was looking at Alex expectantly, and Alex laughed a little. “Ok, ok, I’ll see Thomas again tomorrow. I can get more then,” he said. “We can split one more.” He handed the dog its piece of another one, and--wow, they were good. 

 

Alex reached out his hand to pet the dog, but it backed away, growling. Alex pulled his hand back, and the dog stopped, still eyeing him warily.

 

“You don’t like to be touched?” Alex asked. “That’s ok. I don’t, either.” The dog was still watching Alex as though expecting Alex to hurt it, but after a few minutes it came back up to him and sat down at Alex’s feet.

 

“It’s ok,” Alex said quietly, looking at the dog. “It’s going to be ok.”

 

And they sat there for a few minutes, while Alex wished he could stay forever. Wished he never had to go home, wished he never had to be hurt again.

 

* * *

He was home late, and that night the lightning finally struck, and the eye of the storm passed.

 

It hurt like hell, and as Alex collapsed onto his bed, ignoring Aaron’s questions, he imagined what would have happened if he hadn’t hesitated, if he had answered James’ question with the truth.

 

His arm would probably hurt less.

  
  


* * *

 

Thomas watched Alexander walk into chemistry, and wondered if there was any way he could fix this now.

 

Because even if Alexander got out that day, Thomas was pretty sure that he would never be the same again. It seemed like something had broken inside of Alex that might not be reparable.

 

It was in the way he moved, not just the obvious part, it wasn’t  hard to see that it hurt Alex to just walk. It was the way that--Thomas wasn’t sure how to describe it, only knew that Alexander walked as though something were broken inside of him, and Thomas didn’t know what to do.

 

“Hey,” Thomas said when Alex sat down. Alex looked at him. “What? It was a greeting.” 

 

“Yeah, I noticed.” And that gave Thomas a little hope, as Alex’s sarcasm always did, because it made Thomas think think that this was fixable.

 

“Also, I bought more stuff,” Thomas said, gesturing to the grocery bag on the floor. “I wasn’t sure whether you would be able to carry this bag home, so I tried to get small stuff that could fit into your backpack.”

 

Alex looked at Thomas, than at the bag. His voice was quieter than Thomas had ever heard it. “Thanks.”

 

“Here, hand me your backpack.” The fact that Alexander did, without complaint, said more than anything how fucked up things were. Thomas unzipped the main pocket and put the three bags of trail mix in there, along with a few handfuls of cereal bars. He put more cereal bars into the second pocket along with a bag of pretzels, and managed to cram a jar of peanut butter into the front pocket. 

 

“Thomas I can’t--I can’t take all of that.” Alexander was staring at Thomas.

 

“Is it not safe to bring this much? I can figure out a way to hide it better--maybe in your trumpet case? You play the trumpet, right?”

 

Alexander was still staring. “No, I just--” He stopped, then spoke quietly. “How can you just give me all of that? Shouldn’t you not be able to bring so much?”

 

Thomas looked at Alexander for a moment. “You know, food isn’t a limited resource for most of us.” He tried to keep his voice light, but wasn’t sure if he succeeded. 

 

“Thanks,” Alexander said again, still too softly for Thomas’s liking. 

 

“Dude, it’s fine. Do you have a place to store this at home?” 

 

Alex nodded. 

 

“Ok, then. There are twenty cereal bars, if you and Aaron eat those with the peanut butter that should be enough calories to get you through at least another couple days. The trail mix is mostly nuts, so that’ll also be good for you, and the pretzels are kind of random but they taste good and have some carbs, I think you need those? Anyway, the peanut butter and cereal bars also have protein, although I’m not sure about vitamins.” Thomas paused, thinking. “I probably should have picked up some dried fruit or something, then we could cover at least one more food group. Also--” he paused at the very un-Alexander-like expression Alexander was wearing. “What?”

 

“I’ve just--I don’t understand why you’re doing all of this.”

 

“Because I care about you, idiot, and I like arguing with you and you clearly need a hell of a lot of help, more than I can do, but if filling up your backpack with cereal bars and peanut butter helps, then I’ll do it. Got it?”

 

And there was a ghost of a smile on Alexander’s face, and Thomas realized in a moment of horror that he sounded like Alexander. 

 

Well, at least one of them did. If only Alexander sounded like Alexander, too.

 

* * *

 

New schools were exhausting, and Angelica couldn’t help but thank god for the hour she had between the end of school and the start of practice.

 

She was glad that they had let her on the team, they hadn’t had to let her join, it was the middle of the season. But Angelica was  _ good _ at crew, good enough that the asshole coach had changed his mind about throwing her off the team when he saw her split time. (He had been going to kick her off because of her hijab, and it annoyed Angelica that he had dropped the issue, because she had been ready to fight. That was, perhaps, why she was good at crew; Instead of fighting with the coach, she rowed. For some reason, it got her anger out.)

 

Angelica opened the door of her room to go downstairs for some food. She didn’t get a chance to step out, however, before Eliza had walked past her and sat down primly on Angelica’s bed, her hands clasped over her knees. She took a deep breath, then looked up at Angelica.

 

“You wanted to know what happened that night,” she said tightly, and it took Angelica a moment to figure out what she was talking about. Alexander. Him leaving Eliza  _ alone _ . Yeah, she did fucking want to know what had happened.

 

Angelica didn’t say anything, though, because Eliza had come prepared to talk and talking still wasn’t easy for her, probably never would be. If Angelica spoke, if she interrupted Eliza, it would screw up Eliza’s ability to keep speaking. So Angelica stayed silent, only nodded her assent.

 

Eliza took a breath, and her words came out a little too quickly at first, as they always did. “It was--he fucked up. Not in leaving, not in abandoning us--” And Angelica tried to cover her surprise at the word  _ us _ . “He messed up before that, made her really, really mad. I don’t know if he did it on purpose but I think he did, I think he had a plan--” Eliza paused. “But he also could have just messed up. I don’t know. But it--it was just like before, he got hurt, got hurt  _ badly _ , worse than he had been before. Worse than any of us had been, but he didn’t let it drop, didn’t do the smart thing, didn’t  _ let it go _ .” Eliza stopped again.  “He definitely had a plan. It just...It backfired. She said he had to leave, he couldn’t stay with us anymore, and that--”

 

And the traitor voice inside of Angelica says that that was his plan all along, to get her to send him away. To keep himself safe. But suddenly, she could see it, and she couldn’t blame him. She couldn’t blame him for trying to find a way to stop getting hurt, to make it  _ stop _ . And the same traitor voice tells Angelica that she would have done the same thing, that it’s what anyone would have done.

 

“He tried to stay. Refused to go. I don’t know why, I don’t know if I would’ve done it--I don’t know if I  _ could _ have. But then they came to take him away, and there were  _ police _ there, and I’m not sure who the fuck decided that they needed cops to deal with a thirteen year old kid, but apparently they did, because when they told him to leave he didn’t, he said he wouldn’t leave us, and he started talking. I think, I think he already knew that nothing he said could possibly matter, that no one would listen, but he kept talking, and he sounded calm, I still don’t know how--” Eliza took a breath. “He was trying to get us out. He was trying to do something, and I don’t--” 

 

And maybe, Angelica thinks, she was wrong when she thought that  it was what anyone would have done, getting themselves out. Because by the way Eliza was talking, it sounded like Eliza would have tried to save the others, too. 

 

“They told him to stop talking, to come with them and leave, that everything was under control and he was going to scare Philip.” Angelica had no idea who Phillip was, but she stayed quiet. “He was--Philip was  _ eight _ , Angelica, and he was watching, he  _ watched _ as they hurt Alexander, as they told him that he needed to do what he was told, and he didn’t, and they hurt him. They--one of them took out a fucking taser and, Angelica, he was  _ thirteen _ . And he didn’t give up, he kept talking, and they used that thing on him again and again and he didn’t stop talking, and Philip was still watching, and there was nothing I could do” Eliza looks up, more despair in her eyes then Angelica has seen in years. “There was nothing I could do, but--but maybe there was, and I should have done more, all I did, I did  _ nothing _ . I started shouting, I told them to stop, and it was  _ useless _ , I’ve never felt that useless, that out-of-control before. They ignored me, and I think I kept yelling, I don’t remember, all I know is that it didn’t do a fucking thing. And Alexander passed out, eventually, but--” She paused again, still looking at Angelica as though she had the answers, as though she didn’t feel as though the story was a horror film she wouldn’t get to turn off. “God, it lasted  _ so long _ .” 

 

She stopped, and it took Angelica a full minute to realize that it was done, and another three to find her voice, then another four to realize that maybe she didn’t need to speak at all. So Angelica waited, waited until Eliza looked up at Angelica and then she stood up, walked over to Eliza, and hugged her. 

 

Because there were so many emotions and thoughts spiralling through Angelica’s head, but she could deal with those later. Right now, her sister was here, and her sister was more important.

 

* * *

That night, Alexander didn’t even know what he had done wrong.

 

It was unusual, here. Here, at least they usually had the decency to tell him what the hell he was being hit for. Apparently, today, he was supposed to just  _ know _ , but figuring out impossible puzzles was a lot easier when there wasn’t a fucking belt cutting into his back.

 

So yeah. He didn’t know. 

 

Maybe it was just because he was  _ there _ . And maybe it always would be.

 

Maybe things would never get better.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Aaron fidgeted in his chair, wishing he were just about anywhere else.

 

“What’s odd is that all of your other teachers say that you’re a good kid _. _ ” Mr. Pearce said, looking up from his computer and at Aaron. Aaron looked away. “Which is good, because it means that I might not have to call your parents.”

 

Aaron froze. Seeing the expression on Aaron’s face, the principle chuckled. “Kids always seem so terrified when I bring up calling their parents, I’ve never quite understood it. However, maybe we don’t have to go that far today. Your other teachers say you’ve never done anything like this before, and as long as nothing like this ever happens again, we can forget about it.” He looked up at Aaron, as though Aaron didn’t feel like he had been hit by a bulldozer. “Can we agree on that?”

 

It took Aaron a moment to find his voice, and he could feel Pearce growing increasingly irritated with him. “Nothing like this will happen again,” Aaron said finally. There was a pause, then the principal dismissed him and he walked back out to where Theodosia was waiting.

 

“How’d it go?” She asked, bouncing on her feet slightly. “Was he pissed? I haven’t been to the principal’s office in two weeks, I think. Did he change the decorations?”

 

Aaron couldn’t help but give a small smile. “How would I know if he changed the decorations? I’ve never been there before.”

 

Theo rolled her eyes, and starting walking down the hall. Aaron followed her. “Well, I know  _ that _ , you really need to work on that. I think this was the first time I’ve ever seen you really go nuclear on someone.” She looked him, impressed. “It was pretty cool.”

 

“I wouldn’t have done it, it was just that--he was so  _ wrong _ , you know? And then he was just  _ talking _ and  _ talking _ and he kept going on,  and I don’t know. It just seemed like a good idea.”

 

Theo nodded her approval. “Did he get in trouble?” She paused, then spoke again. “Actually, before that, are you in a lot of trouble?”

 

“I don’t think so. He--” Aaron took a breath. “He threatened to call my parents, but I don’t think he will.”

  
  


Theo stopped walking and looked at him. “And you’re not going to tell me why that would have been such a problem, are you?” Aaron looked down at his feet, and Theo sighed. “Of course you’re not. Ok. I know that you don’t like to talk about it, but if you’re getting hurt then you should tell someone. I don’t even care if it’s me, tell Martha, or the school counselor, or whoever. Please?”

 

Aaron didn’t meet her eyes. “Can you just--please, just let it go.”

 

Theo sighed again. “If I thought that talking about it more would get you to do something, I wouldn’t.” But she knew that it was useless, so Aaron was safe. She started walking again, pushing her way through a group of seventh graders who were blocking the hallway. “Fine. Did he get in trouble?”

 

“‘Course not,” Aaron said. “But it doesn’t matter, as long as we don’t tell Francis.”

 

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Theo asked, staring at him. “Of course we’re telling Francis. Francis is going to lose her shit and it will be the best part of both of our weeks. Also, who do you have for English? I need help with my homework.” 

 

“Jamison.”

 

“God  _ damn _ it.”

 

They walked for a few more minutes, until Theo stopped. “Wait.” Aaron followed her gaze, and saw what she was looking at. Resident Eighth Grade Assholes, James and Celia, and a girl wearing all yellow, who appeared to be their target of the day.

 

“Who  _ is _ she?” Theo said quietly, to Aaron. “And can you tell how she’s doing from here?”

 

‘She’ was new that day, had been in Aaron’s AC Geometry class, and appeared to be doing fairly well. 

 

“Do you think I can interfere?” Theo asked. Aaron was about to respond when they heard a slur thrown across the hall, and more people gathered around the scene.  And then Theo had cut past the crowd of seventh and eighth graders, and was standing next to Celia and James. 

 

“Hey, Celia! Hi, James! How’s it going?” Theo asked, in a tone even brighter than the girl’s shirt.  The two of them stared at her. Aaron hid a smile, watching as she kept talking in that same too-bright tone, turning every word against the two kids that she hated. Sometimes Aaron wondered if those two knew how much happiness they had given Theo, because the amount of joy she got out of hating them was really unparalleled. 

 

As Theo was finishing up a compliment on James’ recent discovery of her third brain cell, Celia cut her off.

 

“Yours?” she asked curtly, referring to the girl in yellow. 

 

“Mine,” Theo agreed, flashing a deadly grin. Celia turned to James, and the two of them disappeared into the crowd.

 

(Theo and Celia had some agreement that apparently went back to second grade but had taken on new meaning recently. It involved Francis, James, a girl who had since moved away, Aaron, and occasionally three mountain goats, depending on who was telling the story. In the end, though, it basically amounted some sort of peace treaty under which Celia wasn’t allowed to beat up any of Theo’s friends, and Theo couldn’t beat up any of Celia’s friends.  _ Unless provoked _ , Theo had reminded Aaron, multiple times, and it was an exception she used frequently.)

 

The crowd had cleared, but the girl in the yellow still looked confused, probably because Theo was telling her the version with the mountain goats. Aaron decided to help out.

 

“She’s weird,” he said, gesturing at Theo. “But generally, if you just let her do her thing, she’ll only get sent to the office a couple times a week. It’s easier than arguing. I’m Aaron, by the way.”

 

The girl looked confused for another moment, then grinned. “I mean, I like goats. I’m Peggy. She/her.”

 

It took both Theo and Aaron a moment to figure out what that meant.

 

“Oh! Like pronouns. I’m Theo, she/her as well,” Theo said.

 

“He/him,” Aaron said.

 

“So, who do you have for English?” Theo asked, and then they were friends.

 

* * *

 

Angelica stopped ignoring him.

 

She apologized, explained why she had been mad, told Alexander that Eliza had explained, apologized again, and let it drop. All in about two sentences.

 

Alex wasn’t sure whether to be angry or grateful. He picked a third option: neutral. Acting as though nothing had changed, as though he didn’t desperately need Angelica’s voice to be something bright he could focus on. Pretending nothing was wrong.

 

He had gotten pretty good at it, over the years.

 

(He was grateful that she hadn’t gone on, didn’t think he could have listened to a rambling apology without breaking down.)

 

He wished he were invisible at the restaurant that day, when both Lily and James kept looking at him like he was about to shatter, and maybe they were right, maybe he was. He wished he were invisible when Lily asked if there was anything she could do, and everything inside of Alexander was screaming for him to say  _ yes _ . To beg her to pick up the phone and call someone, anyone, who could stop it, who might be able to help him. But there was no one like that, no one who could just press a magic button and make sure that no one would hurt Alexander again. 

 

And it wasn’t that he even needed that, he didn’t need protection forever, he just wanted--he just wanted to not be hurt for that night. Just one night.

  
  


“It’s nothing,”  Aaron said, and it wasn’t, it wasn’t nothing, but Alexander didn’t think there was anything he could do about it.

 

“What happened?” he asked, not realizing until after he spoke that it didn’t matter. 

 

Aaron looked at the ground, and Alexander wondered if Aaron was as tired as he was. “I got in trouble at school.” Aaron stopped. “He said he wouldn’t call, I don’t know what happened, I thought--”

 

And Alexander didn’t have the energy, didn’t think he would be able to make it back up the stairs if he went down, but there were some fights he wasn’t going to lose and this was one of them. 

 

(Even though, the next day, he would need more excuses to hide the cut on his face. Even though James wouldn’t believe him, would ask him what had happened in that horrible, concerned tone. Even though he knew he had already lost the fight, knew he had lost it from the moment he saw Aaron in more pain than any thirteen year old should ever have been in. Even though, the next day, he had to dig his fingernails into his palms to remind himself that he was still there. Even though, in the end, there were some fights that had been lost before they began.)

  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Wow! Thank you!  
> Several questions:  
> 1\. Anyone guess why Lily and James are acting odd?  
> 2.Do any of you know any good Alex Fierro centric fic? (I know, I'm still reading those, I'm sorry.)  
> 3\. Which element of this fic is currently the crinigiest? (It can be a theme, a line, a passage--I'm trying to figure out how to avoid Cringe™, and I think knowing what you guys think is cringey is the best place to start)  
> 4\. Is there a way to start a forum or something on this website? It would be fun to talk about writing fic with someone.  
> 5\. If forums are a thing, does anyone want to start a foster care fic bookclub with me? We could read a fic every week, talk about what makes a fic good, idk.  
> Oh, and I did promise there would be more James, yeah, I totally didn't forget about that for this chapter. But I will have a lot more of him in the next chapter, I promise.  
> Thank you so much!! If you're in the mood, comments make e smile for weeks.


	10. Hymnless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Charles Lee is truly and asshole, and Alex is never going back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Wow! Would you believe that I have three thousand words of the NEXT chapter written? I'm so proud of myself.  
> Also, yeah, I changed my name. No particular reason, just felt like it.  
> Also also also!!! the forum should be up soon! I'm putting it on FF.net, I'll have more information soon. That should be up today or tomorrow.  
> That's it, I think! Hope you like this! No TW's apart from the usually, although this might be more graphic that some of the stuff I've written in the past.

Alexander wondered how long it would take Lily and James to notice. He was hoping he could get away with five, maybe ten minutes if he was careful, if he pulled up his hood and ducked his head. Anyone else, he could have looked them directly in the eyes and they still wouldn’t have noticed, wouldn’t have cared. But Lily and James were different, and Alex just hoped he could last ten minutes before the questions started.

 

He didn’t last one.

 

As soon as the two of them looked up, the pot James had been holding fell to the floor, banging loudly against the tiles. Alexander winced, but luckily it was empty. James didn’t seem to notice.

 

“What happened?” Lily asked, and why did she have to speak so quietly? After everything, it wasn’t like a loud voice was going to be the thing that finally broke him.

 

James picked up his pot, still looking at Alexander. “Did they do this?”

 

Alexander didn’t mean to respond; He was about to say no, to say that he had  _ told _ them, he was fine, there was nothing to worry about. That nothing was wrong. He had gotten into a fight at school, yes, again, he got into a lot of fights. And the words sounded so good inside Alexander’s head that he wanted to believe them himself.

 

He didn’t say any of it. Instead, with the words on his tongue and his heart pounding so loudly it hurt, he nodded.

 

It was a mistake.

 

James dropped the pot again. Lily pulled out her cell phone and started pressing in numbers, although her hand was shaking so badly it took her several tries to get each one.

 

“What--what are you doing?” Alex asked, his heart still beating painfully loud, and god, this was all  _ wrong _ , and why couldn’t he have just kept his mouth  _ shut _ for once?

 

“I’m calling the fucking police.” Lily’s voice was hard. Alexander felt sick.

 

“No! You can’t--please, you can’t do that,  _ please _ , Lily, I--”  

 

“Alexander,” James said, and  _ why  _ couldn’t he just go back five minutes and not tell them? “Alex, why don’t you want her to call?”

 

“Because--” And somewhere, beneath his pounding heartbeat and the drowning feeling of wishing he hadn’t spoken, he registered how odd it was that it was Lily angrily calling the police and James speaking reasonably and calmly. “Because I shouldn’t have said anything! Because it’s all going to be ok but not if you call, then it won’t, and I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that, I shouldn’t have said anything--” But he couldn’t take it back, no matter how many times he tried, and he there was no way to fix this now.

 

James said something quietly to Lily, and reluctantly, she set the phone down. They were both looking at him, and Alexander just wanted to go back to six minutes before and take it back.

 

“Why are you apologizing?”

 

And James clearly meant his tone to be reassuring, but in that moment, it felt like an accusation. Alexander took a breath, willing the words to come, trying to push the feeling of  _ mistake _ aside long enough to speak.

 

“I shouldn’t have done that,” he said, wishing to hell that he sounded calm but knowing that his words were too panicky. “I’m sorry. Please, can you just-- _ fuck _ , I shouldn’t have done that. It was a mistake, I’m sorry, but please don’t call.” And that felt fairly reasonable, his heartbeat had definitely slowed down a little--not that it replaced the feeling of having ruined everything, but he was calming down a little. So why were they still looking at him like he had just told them that he was going to die?

 

“Alex--” Lily started. She stopped, and after a pause, James spoke.

 

“Alex, you should not be apologizing,” he said, his tone careful. “I just--what I don’t understand is why on earth you want to go back there.” 

 

And how was Alexander supposed to explain that he didn’t understand it, either? That all he knew was that having told them felt  _ wrong _ , and the thought of never going back felt even worse than having to go back every day for the next six months?

 

He took another shuddering breath, wishing to hell and back that he hadn’t gotten himself into this. (“ _ No one to blame but yourself.” _ ) And  _ that _ was not a voice Alexander was going to let into his head, even if it was right.

 

Lily said something to James, then walked out of the room. 

 

“Alexander,” James tried again. “Is there a reason? Is there any reason why I can’t just make the call?”   
  


“Because--” he took another breath, and then tried to speak, even though the words weren’t there. “Because not going back would be even worse. Because I have a _plan_ , and it’s not ideal, but it’s all that I have right now and if you take that away from me I’m not sure what I’ll do.” He looked up at James, hoping James would somehow understand.

 

James frowned.  Lily walked back in.

 

“Alexander,” she said, and her voice was kinder than it had been before. “Are you hurt anywhere else?” And he could tell she knew the answer was yes, but he wasn’t about to make the same fucking mistake twice in a row.

 

He shook his head.

 

Now Lily was frowning as well.

 

And then the phone rang, startling all of them, and James picked it up.

 

“Hello?” A pause. James was glaring at the wall, his hands clenched. “Yes, he’s here.” And then Alexander understood who was on the other end.

 

“I am going back tonight,” Alex said in a low voice. “I am going to go back as soon as you put that phone down and if you say anything right now it will not change that. The only thing it will change is what happens when I get there.” He kept his eyes on James’, daring him to say something. If there was one thing high school had taught him, it was how to issue a challenge. James’ glare deepened, and had Alexander been someone else, he might have noticed that it wasn’t directed at him. However, being Alex, all that registered was that James was angry, and he assumed it was with him. It didn’t matter, though; he had said what he needed to say. James would not say anything, at least not right now.

 

Alexander was brought back to reality when James slammed the phone down. He looked directly at Alex.

 

“Can you give me a single reason why I shouldn’t pick up that phone again and call the fucking  police?”   
  


And yes, Alexander could. He could give James maybe a hundred reasons, but none that James would find convincing, none that would make sense to someone who hadn’t spent the last five years in situations like this.

 

He took a breath. “Because I don’t trust the police.” It was a reason, definitely not his entire reason, but one that might have some effect on James.

 

“Why not?” James asked.

 

“It’s pretty obvious why not, James, he’s a foster kid with a criminal record living in an abusive house. There’s not a lot an American police force is going to do for him.”   
  


James blinked. “Yeah, but--”

 

“How do you know I have a criminal record?” Alex asked, genuinely curious, for a moment. Then the weight of what he had just did came crashing back, and  _ why couldn’t he have just stayed quiet-- _

 

“Your--the people you’re staying with told us when you started working here,” Lily said, glancing out the window.

 

There was a pause. 

 

“Why were they calling?” Alex asked suddenly.

 

James hesitated. “He said you needed to go home, now.” His voice was strong with hatred. “He was talking about someone named Aaron.”

 

And panic flooded into Alexander, because there were so many possibilities and none of them were good and he was  _ certain _ Aaron had said he wouldn’t be home tonight, so why--

 

Alex forced himself to stay still, to not turn and run and try to get home before anything bad could happen. “What, exactly, did he say about Aaron?” Each word was carefully measured, because he needed to know this and he needed to know it now.

 

“He said--” James paused.

 

“James, if you don’t tell me what the hell he said--”

 

“I’m not trying to hide anything from you, Alex, I’m just not quite sure. I think Aaron wasn’t home when he was supposed to be or something, and he was trying to convince me that he was just  _ worried _ about you guys.” 

 

“Are you certain he said Aaron wasn’t home?”

 

“Yes--” James said, his tone making it clear he wanted to say more.   
  


Alex gave a breath of relief.

 

“Ok. I’m going to go home now.” He looked at where Lily was standing by the sink, to James, still next to the phone. They were both giving him looks somewhere between concern and confusion. “Look, I get that you don’t understand, that you want me to leave.” And the feeling came back, the fact that  _ none of this would be happening if he had just kept his mouth shut. _

“And...and I will. I will, but it has to be on my terms, ok?” Neither of them seemed convinced. Alex sighed. “Just--give me until Friday.” Five days. Not enough, but maybe enough to stall, to figure out something better. “Please?”

 

There was silence, for a moment, then Lily spoke. “And what if you get seriously hurt before then?”

 

Alex was tempted to promise that he wouldn’t, but was pretty sure that wouldn’t accomplish anything. “That’s been a possibility for the last five months,” he said, pretending not to notice the way that his response hit them, the way that James winced and Lily’s eyes opened a little wider, like she might cry. But Alex had a point to make, and he had to win this argument. “Actually, it’s been a possibility for most of the last five years, and you guys knowing about it doesn’t make a difference. I’m going to leave, but you have to let me do it.” And somewhere, his words had gone from whatever he though would convince them to something far closer to the truth than he would have liked. “ You can’t--you can’t take that away from me. Please, just give me five days.”

 

And they clearly didn’t like it, but they both agreed.

 

* * *

 

Charles Lee considered himself a reasonable man.

 

And as a reasonable man, he felt reasonably entitled to get reasonably irritated over reasonably irritating things. Reasonably irritating things such as Alexander Hamilton, who, unhappy with his E, had come to try to convince Lee to raise his grade,

 

This, in Charles Lee’s reasonable opinion, was completely ridiculous. Hamilton couldn’t just get his grade raised because he was unhappy with it, especially given that Hamilton had barely come to half of the classes. Look, Lee understood that some students missed class for valid reasons, but he  _ knew _ that Hamilton was not one of them. Why Hamilton’s parents--perfectly reasonable people, Lee had met them several times, and he had been shocked that people like that could be raising someone like Hamilton. But why they called the school and got him excused each time made no sense to Lee. Honestly, there was no excuse for a student to skip a class, and the fact that Hamilton did it so often made Lee unreasonably angry.

 

Well, it made him reasonably angry. Because it was a reasonable thing to be angry about. And he was a reasonable man.

 

“You’ve barely done any of your work for this semester, Mr. Hamilton, and on the very  _ few _ occasions you’ve actually managed to show up to my class, you have disrupted my curriculum and made it impossible for me to teach. For what reason am I supposed to raise your grade?”

 

Hamilton looked up from his desk, which he had been staring at. “I turned in most of the assignments that I have zero’s for. I’m not sure why I got zero’s.” His voice was quieter than Lee had ever heard it, which was odd, but also a bit of a relief. He didn’t want to argue about this; he was right, and he wasn’t going to change his mind.

“I don’t accept late work. Most of your essays were turned in late. Mr. Hamilton, I have no intention of being unfair. However, your grade is an accurate assessment of your work in this class.” 

 

“I was absent on the days they were due. I turned them in as soon as I got back,” Hamilton said, looking straight into Lee’s eyes. This was the thing that Hamilton didn’t understand, the concept of respect. If Hamilton wanted to skip class, fine. But he didn’t get to come in the next day and get credit for the assignments he had missed. 

 

Lee knew that Hamilton wouldn’t answer--boys like Hamilton never did--but he couldn’t resist asking, anyway. “And why, exactly, have you missed class so much?”

 

“I was--”

 

Lee cut him off. “I don’t want to hear excuses. You missed the class. Now you have to make up the work.”

 

“But you asked! Why ask a question if you don’t want an answer?”

 

Lee’s anger was reasonable, but that didn’t make him any less angry. “Careful, Mr. Hamilton. I would hate to have to ask you to spend more time in detention.”

 

Hamilton took a breath. “Look, I’m sorry. I can come in at lunch if you want, and I’ll make up whatever work you want me to, but I need the grade for college. All my absences in your class are excused, and I don’t understand why they’re affecting my grade.”

 

“Given that you turned down my offer of coming in after school, I’m not sure if there’s anything I can do for you.”

 

“You have complete control over this! Please, I can’t come in after school. I think Washington explained that, my parents explained that, I have to go to work. I can come in at lunch, or on weekends or whatever, just not after school. I have to be able to go to work.” He looked down at his hands again. “I don’t--I don’t know what I’ll do if I lose that.”

 

Lee ignored the last comment, focusing instead on one of the words Hamilton had used. “I didn’t think you lived with your parents.”

 

“I live with my foster parents. And how, exactly, is this any of business?” Every word was tense.

 

“I was just wondering.” And he had succeeded, because now Hamilton was angrier than he was. And if Hamilton was angry, than he was more likely to say something that Lee could use to end this discussion. “I’m not going to raise your grade because you feel like you deserve it. You deserve the grade you have. It isn’t my fault that you skipped my class, and it’s not my fault that you have an E.”   
  


“I didn’t skip your class.” Hamilton’s voice was low again. “It’s all excused absences. I’m not sure what you don’t understand about that.”

 

“Sooner of later, Hamilton,” Lee said, ignoring him, “You’re going to have to learn that actions have consequences. And skipping class, that’s not something you can expect to get away with. I suppose your lack of real parents might account for some of your lack of understanding on this topic, but just because you’ve never had to face real consequences before now doesn’t get you out of this.”

 

For a moment, Hamilton looked completely shocked. Then he started laughing. “Isn’t there some rule that you guys aren’t supposed to say shit like that?”

 

Lee briefly wondered whether perhaps he had crossed a line, but decided that he probably hadn’t. In his experience, Hamilton overreacted to most things, and this was probably one of them. 

 

Lee sighed. “Mr. Hamilton, I’ve offered you everything I can. If you refuse to take it, then I suppose that this meeting is over.”   
  


“I’m sorry, can we back up to the point when you said that I didn’t understand the concept of consequences because my parents are dead?” 

 

Lee sincerely doubted that Hamilton’s parents were dead. There was just no way a boy like--like  _ this _ had been through something like that. Because Lee would never wish something like that on anyone, but he did believe that hardship, well, it made kids into better people.

 

Perhaps that was the problem here. Kids who had had everything handed to them on a silver platter and still thought they had it rough.

 

“Hamilton,” Lee began, ignoring the last thing the boy had said. “I cannot raise your grade. And I cannot change your options for making up the work without talking to your-- _ guardians _ .”   
  


And the sheer look of panic that came over Hamilton made Lee  _ certain _ that Hamilton had not skipped class for any valid reason.

 

“No, please, I’ll just--” And Hamilton looked defeated, probably because, for the first time in his life, he wasn’t getting what he wanted.

 

“You know, Mr. Hamilton, sometimes life doesn’t give you everything you want. Sometimes you just have to deal with what comes your way.”   
  


“You think I don’t  _ know _ that?” Yeah, Lee was pretty sure he didn’t know that.  “Ok, I’ll--” Hamilton’s voice broke, as though what he were saying were incredibly hard for him. “I can come in after school.”

 

“Excellant.”

 

* * *

 

Alex woke up in his room, and just for a moment, everything was ok.

 

For the moment of waking up peacefully, not being tired, not feeling like he had messed anything up. Not having to try and figure out why everything hurt so much, not having to decide whether anything was seriously broken. Just then, everything was ok.

 

And then a gear switched on inside Alex’s head and he remembered everything he had done wrong, and he buried his face in his pillow and wished he could go back to not thinking.

 

And then the pain kicked in and Alex no longer was worried about what he had done wrong because  _ shit _ . 

 

It hurt more than it was supposed to, more than they had hurt him before. More than they  _ ever _ hurt him, which was bad, because it meant things were getting worse, and maybe Lily and James were right, and maybe he would ask them to make the call on Friday, because maybe someone would listen to  _ them _ .

 

And then he remembered that he had told Lee he would go in after school, and that that meant he would have to quit his job, and he would never see Lily and James again.

 

And then Alex buried his face in his pillow and let himself cry.

 

* * *

And then the next part of Alex’s brain switched on and he realized how odd it was, that he was lying in his bed in absolute silence and no one was home.

 

He glanced at his clock, and learned that it was after ten in the morning. That was good, it meant that they had let him stay home from school. And Aaron hadn’t come home last night, had slept over at Anastasia or whoever’s house, so that was all ok. 

 

Of course, Lee would be an asshole about Alex missing school but there wasn’t much he could do about that now.

Lee was right in saying that Alex had missed his class more often than any other of Alex’s other classes, but that was only because of the goddamn dress code, which no one but Lee enforced. And some days Alexander couldn’t take off his hoodie. Not just because he needed it as camouflage, but at some point, he had gotten attached to it, and on days when everything hurt too much, it was just--

 

He just needed it. To get through his day. And so some days he skipped class.

 

He was lucky that he was allowed to stay home. Last time, in the last place that went completely to shit, he would have been expected to go to school today, to get up and go about his day as though nothing were wrong.

 

And maybe Alex had used to be stronger, because he knew he had managed it, before. But just then, he wasn’t sure if he could even stand up.

 

Well, as long as he was stuck here, he may as well get something done. Alex reached into the backpack next to his bed and pulled out his history textbook.

 

* * *

 

George stepped out of his classroom and almost collided with Thomas Jefferson.

 

Thomas barely seemed to notice, mumbling an apology and continuing to stare at the door. He was biting his lip and looked like he was trying to decide something. Then he started, as though only just realizing that George had walked into him, took a breath, and spoke.

 

“I--” he stopped, and George could almost feel the anxiety pouring off of him. He turned and reopened the door to his classroom.

 

“Is everything alright?” George asked, closing the door behind him. It was pretty clear that, from Thomas’s perspective at least, everything wasn’t alright, but George had found that most things were fixable. At least, the kind of things that led seventeen year old boys to desperately try to tell their teachers something--those usually had solutions.

 

“Alex told me not to come, but I didn’t know what to do, and it’s probably a mistake to be here but it’s got to be more of a mistake not to do this, and he wasn’t at school today and I don’t know why and he doesn’t even have a fucking phone so there’s no way I can figure out if he’s ok which he probably  _ isn’t _ , because there’s no way he will be after everything, but maybe coming here now is just going to make it worse, and--” He finally broke off to take a shuddering breath, and looked at George, as though George was supposed to have an answer for whatever it was he had just said.

 

George cleared his throat. “Could you repeat that, maybe a little slower this time?”

 

Thomas looked down. Then he took a breath, and spoke again. “Alex doesn’t want me to do this, but I don’t know what else I can do. He’s--He says it will be worse if I say something, but I’m not sure how it could possibly get any worse, but he--oh god, and Aaron, and maybe I shouldn’t be saying this--” George could hear Thomas working himself back up to a panic again.

 

“Thomas, what’s going on?” And there was something in students, in that despite how much they might hate their classes, they had some sort of intrinsic trust for their teachers, some sense that teachers were  _ safe _ . 

 

Thomas looked up at George. “Alexander’s foster parents hit him.” A pause, in which George processed this. There was a pause during which he ran through everything he knew about Alexander Hamilton, and tried to see if it made sense. Realized that yes, it did. Wondered how he could have missed it, how much pain he could have saved Alexander if he had figured it out sooner. Wondered what he was supposed to do now.

 

But first came the boy standing in front of him, who George had thought hated Alexander. And he had, Alexander and Thomas had definitely hated each other before. But either they didn’t anymore, or something had happened, something that led to Thomas being the only one willing to do this. 

 

And Thomas looked more upset than he had before, and George needed to deal with that. Except what was he supposed to say to this? Because he knew that, on some level, people had thought about this. Someone had thought about what a boy in Thomas’s situation was supposed to do, and this was pretty close. It would have been more helpful if Thomas had gone to the guidance counselor, but he had, for the most part, done what he was supposed to do.

 

But what was George supposed to do now?

 

He started with the one thing he knew he could do: try to calm down the boy in front of him.

 

Which, apparently, he couldn’t do. What was he supposed to  _ say _ ?

 

And somewhere, beneath George’s desperate attempts to build a plan, there was the horror of what this meant. Of how it fit into Alexander shutting down two weeks ago, of what it  _ meant  _ that he had shut down. How it fit into and explained and made George wonder about a whole lot of things that he could not think about just then.

 

And then Thomas was talking again. “He called me maybe two weeks, a little less, I don’t remember, but he was really upset and he asked me if his little brother could stay at my house for the night because he was scared that something would happen and it did and they--”

 

“Thomas,” George said, as gently as possible. “I’m going to need you to talk a little slower.”

 

Thomas blinked, then nodded and started talking again. “This might have been a mistake, but I didn’t know what else to  _ do _ , and I couldn’t just do nothing, I couldn’t just--” He took a desperate breath, then spoke again, his voice much quieter. “They hurt him really badly. His little brother came to stay at my house, because Alex was--he was scared that something would happen to him. And he was--” Thomas’s voice broke  off again. “He was hurt really bad.”

 

Alright. This is not something George can deal with. “You did the right thing,” he said carefully, and Thomas looked up, hopeless. 

 

“But what if I didn’t?” he asked quietly. “What if this was all wrong and--and what if someone calls his house or tries to help him and it doesn’t work? And he has to go back there after someone’s told them that they know--what if he just gets hurt more because I told someone?”

 

“You needed to tell someone,” George said firmly, because that might be the only thing he was certain of.

 

An image of Alexander came into George’s head, long sleeves and bruises finally making sense. And George wondered, again, how he  _ missed _ this. What had he cost Alexander by not noticing, by allowing him to go back every day?

 

“Alright, let’s--let’s go down to the counseling office, and you can tell them what you told me,” George said. Thomas seemed to retreat in on himself. “Or, you’ve done enough, Thomas. I’ll go down and talk to them. You should go home.”

 

“No, I--I want to come,” Thomas said, straightening up and following George out of the room.

 

When they got down to the counseling office, Thomas told his story to the two people who worked there, whose names George knew but had forgotten. He told it more carefully this time, talked about Alexander’s little brother and about the first time he figured out what was going on.  He talked about arguing with Alexander about it, about how Alexander had said it had been going on for a while. Then he glanced at George, and started talking again, about how Alexander got in trouble at school, and George’s heart stopped.

 

Because the image of a boy panicking when George mention calling his parents was suddenly all George could see. And Thomas was still talking, telling the counselors about how badly Alexander had been hurt, how he had gotten hurt because of  _ George _ . Because George hadn’t listened. Because he had assumed that Alexander was exaggerating when he begged George not to call, when he said that he couldn’t go to detention.

 

God, and he had genuinely thought he was  _ helping _ Alexander when he gave him that detention. 

 

Thomas finally finished, glancing at George again, and George gave his best attempt of a reassuring nod. One of the counselors dismissed Thomas, and it was only by her pointed look at George that he understood he was being dismissed, too.

 

He didn’t leave. As soon as the door closed behind Thomas, he turned to her. “What do you guys do about this?”

 

It wasn’t a pointed question; he only wanted an answer, just wanted some idea of what was going to happen to Alexander. But her mouth formed a tight line and she spoke in only a clipped voice. “We will look at his file and make decisions accordingly.” 

 

“You’re not going to do anything?”

 

“I didn’t say that. We have this completely under control. It may take a few days, but we will make sure that everything is alright.” Her lips were pursed. The guy standing next to her nodded his assent before turning and walking into his office. “Do you have any further questions?”   
  


_ But what if he doesn’t have a few days _ ? Did she not hear Thomas, did she understand that Alexander had been absent today, did she not care that he would certainly get hurt again if she waited?

 

But George also knew that there were times when arguing would accomplish something and times when it wouldn’t. And if he started arguing right now, the woman would be forced to argue against him, to argue that it was ok to take her time and do absolutely nothing to help Alexander. And the last he wanted to do was have her argue for that.

 

So he nodded and walked out of the room, deciding that he would do some research of his own at home.

 

* * *

George wished to  _ hell _ he didn’t have to do this. 

 

But his options were trusting those counselors, doing something himself, or calling the police. Or, a fourth option, typing the problem into google and seeing what would come up, which was what he had gone with.

 

But staring at the computer screen a few minutes later, a good part of him wished he hadn’t.

 

_ I don’t know if this is just me being paranoid, but if I were a teacher, I would not do anything  without a bulletproof plan to protect the kid from the emotional and physical consequences of that meeting. _

 

It wasn’t a source he would have necessarily trusted, just a random person’s blog. But somehow, it hit George harder than anything else had. 

 

The words  _ emotional and physical consequences _ stood out on the screen. George stared at them until they blurred together. Because they somehow put into perspective what nothing else had, that if he fucked this up, Alexander was going to get hurt.

 

Not in an abstract way. Not that he would be upset, that his future would be damaged. If George did the wrong thing, someone was going to physically hurt Alexander.

 

And it wasn’t that George had never come across anything like this before. He hadn’t, never anything exactly like this, but he had helped students before, students who were hurting themselves or who were on drugs or who were just so stressed out over school that they thought not being alive would be better.

 

But it wasn’t something that got easier. Perhaps it was because he had never dealt with anything quite like this, with the same consequences and connotations. Or maybe it was just that it  _ didn’t get easier _ , that you could never say that a student getting hurt wasn’t a big deal because so many other students had, too.

 

Or maybe, maybe it was that there was no one to call. Not that that made this better or worse--things like this couldn’t be ranked, George had found. There was no scale for this. But maybe this felt so different because there was no one to call. No parents, no counseling groups, no hospitals--because George couldn’t  _ tell _ anyone without the very real possibility that Alexander would get hurt because of it.

 

George could hear a door opening, then the sound of voices filling the house. Laf was home. Along with James and Hercules, by the sound of it.

 

Perhaps--maybe the counselors knew what they were doing. They must know more than George did.

 

He closed his computer screen and stood up. Maybe there was still time to prevent his house from burning down.

  
  
  


* * *

 

When Hamilton skipped school for the second day in a row--the first two days he was supposed to be making up for the missed class--Charles Lee decided it was time he did something.

 

It wasn’t because he hated the kid--he certainly did not like Alexander Hamilton, but that wasn’t his motivation for doing what he did. No, it was just that some students needed more help, needed someone to help them get onto the right track. Hamilton was one of them. 

 

So it wasn’t malice that caused Lee to get into his car, and he wasn’t thinking about hatred as he turned down Goldberry and passed the payphone on the corner of Soo. He may have been thinking about consequences, and how never facing them had made Hamilton into who he was. And he was just about certain that he was doing the right thing.

 

He parked his car outside of Hamilton's house and got out.

  
  


* * *

  
  


And somehow, Alexander was laughing.

 

He shouldn’t; he was pretty sure that the laughter was a sign that something in his head had finally broken, that he was done for. But somehow, despite everything, he couldn’t help but laugh.

 

Because this was it. He had never been hurt this badly before, and he wouldn’t be again. This was it. Not because of any choice he would make, or because he had finally reached his breaking point, but because this was it.

 

Because there was a genuine, honest-to-god chance that he was about to die. He knew it, even as he couldn’t stop laughing. Knew that if he passed out, if he closed his eyes and let everything disappear, there was a good chance he wouldn’t wake up. And he had been in situations like this before, this was definitely not the first time he had thought he might die, but it was the first time it had seemed...He wasn’t quite sure. Plausible, maybe. Or maybe nothing was different, maybe this was just what about-to-die felt like. Being about to die was one of those things that didn’t get easier.

 

But that wasn’t why he was laughing. He was laughing because even if he somehow survived, this was it. He wasn’t going to recover from this, even if he didn’t outright die, and that would mean that someone would have to look into how the hell this had happened, and he might not have trusted most authorities but he did sort of trust hospitals. And so, whatever happened, he was never coming back here. 

 

And all because of Charles Lee. All because of an asshole who might have actually thought he was genuinely helping Alex.

 

Yeah. Thanks.

 

And it seemed ironic, somehow, that Lee would be the one to do this. That Lee would have done what nobody else could’ve, that he had just gotten Alex a ticket out of this.

 

Unless he was about to die. Then Lee hadn’t accomplished anything other than being a dick. And as time went by, that was starting to seem like more and more of a possibility.

 

Alex wasn’t trying to be overdramatic, and he wasn’t trying to exaggerate. But he did know that there was only a certain amount of blood you could lose before it became a problem, only a certain number of times you could be hit before something stopped working. And there wasn’t anything he could do to protect himself, so he had no choice but to wait and hope that it didn’t reach that point.

 

And then he was outside, and a door was slamming behind him, and he vaguely felt like someone had just yelled at him, but he couldn’t quite grasp at the thought. It was as though the pain was burning through every coherent thought, and he couldn’t quite hold onto anything.

 

It was cold. He knew that, could feel the snow under his feet--was he not wearing shoes? He must have not been wearing shoes. 

 

And then, on some basic, instinctual level, Alex knew he was going to die. And it wouldn’t be because of Lee, or because of the person who had just hit him so many times, or because of a storm that destroyed everything or even because of Alexander himself. No, the cold was going to kill him, the impossibly bitter winter of this town so far much farther north than Alex was ever meant to be. The cold was going to kill him, and maybe that wasn’t such a bad way to go. Maybe it would be fine if he closed his eyes right here, surrounded by the snow that was starting to feel warm.

 

But then there was a noise, something familiar that Alex couldn’t quite place, something that wasn’t quite words but had some feeling of protection. And then there was someone--something?--nudging him, and then Alexander was standing, shakily, sure he would fall any moment, but standing. And then he followed the noise, the strange, safe sound, which seemed to be leading him somewhere. 

 

It hurt more than maybe anything he had ever done before, but he kept walking. And the noise continued, and Alexander noticed suddenly how odd it was that he couldn’t see, and he realized that his hair was covering his eyes. He tried to lift his arm to fix that but found he couldn’t, so he continued to walk, until he fell forward and his face pressed into the snow.

 

And as the world disappeared, his thoughts went from Aaron to Phillip to Eliza, not as he knew her now but as he had known her four years ago. And then he was even farther back, in a sunny place so much warmer than this, in a life that hadn’t yet fallen apart. And so much of Alex wanted to stay there, in that safe, perfect, world, but something was pulling him back. There was a noise, that sound he couldn’t quite place, holding him in  _ now _ . And he tried to tell it to leave him alone, because now was cold and it hurt and he was scared, and why couldn’t he just go back to the sun? But the sound kept up, and it felt safe, so Alex held onto it. And he stayed awake for another moment, and another, and another. And then there was nothing he could do to hold onto consciousness, but even though he didn’t quite know what was happening, or if he would ever wake up, he thought everything would probably be ok. Because that sound, that strange, familiar, safe sound, was starting to remind Alex of a dog barking.

  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A note: George's reaction was a particularily poor one. So were Lily and James'. They each did what I thought was realistic of them, but not what was necessarily the best decision. If you are in a situation that is at all like any of this, do not base your actions off of them.
> 
> Thanks for reading! If you left a comment, I would be overjoyed. Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas, or happy holidays. Check out the forum when you can!


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A dog saves Alex's life. Price continues to be an asshole. George monologues.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> guess who isn't actually dead! Yeah it's me way to go you guessed right. ANyways, um, yeah, sorry. I kinda...I have no excuse. I got distracted? No actually what really happened with this chapter is that it sucks. It sucked before so I edited it and then it still sucked so I rewrote it and then it STILL sucked so I edited again and now it is still Shit but I am posting it because I am too frustrated to deal. I'm really sorry for making you guys read this. Here's to hoping the next chapter will be better! (Spoiler alert: it won't be)  
> ALSO I MADE A TUMBLR but I have no idea how to use tumblr so come help me out I'm hymnforthehymnless please i need so much help.  
> IMPORTANT THING: Alex, John, Laf, and Herc are all Juniors in high school. The reason why Alex said earlier that he only had to last six months at this place is because of his plan to get into college, which is difficult because he has not completed a full school year in one place in a long time. It's more complicated than that but basically if he doesn't finish out the school year here he can't get into college.

John could hear a dog barking.

 

He was walking home with Hercules and Laf, the three of the having planned a sleepover at Laf’s house. As they walked, John couldn’t help but think that there was something wonderful about snow after dark. 

 

This was a sentiment, John knew, he did not share with Lafayette. Laf didn’t think any type of snow was wonderful. Hercules had always fallen somewhere between them on the is-snow-good-or-is-it-Satan’s-second-more-evil-cousin debate. They hadn’t had that argument in years, staying to their much more mature, which-Harry-Potter-death-is-saddest debate. (Which John was  _ clearly _ correct about and Laf was so  _ obviously _ wrong about, seriously Herc, how can you  _ take their side _ \--). They had more important things to argue about than the snow. Somehow, though, as the three of them walked home, John couldn’t help but bring it up again.

 

“Laf, how do you still manage not to love the snow?”

 

Laf’s response was immediate, as though they had been waiting for John to ask that question. “John, you are  _ joking _ , yes? Have you not noticed how  _ fucking cold _ it is? How there is so much _ ice _ to slip on and fall on and  _ die _ ? How your beautiful snow is  _ soaking through my shoes  _ and I will soon not be able to feel my toes? Have you thought of any of this?”

 

Herc sighed in a long-suffering sort of way. “Guys, I thought we left this argument in ninth grade.”

 

“So you are are going to  _ take his side _ ?” Laf asked, sounding scandalized. “What about our history?” They put a hand over their heart. “Also, is there any chance your sister could pick us up?”

 

“I think she’s driving some friends up to the city. We’re stuck walking.”

 

“Great!” John said. “Because the snow is  _ really pretty _ tonight.”    
  


“Whatever,” Laf said, crossing their arms. “I’m still cold.”

 

Herc took off his jacket, balled it up, and threw it at Lafayette. It hit them in the chest before falling to the ground. Laf made their ‘I-have-been-brutally-attacked-and-am-now-dying’ face.

 

“You wound me!” they declared, flopping backwards into the snow.

 

“I was giving you my jacket, idiot,” Herc said. Laf sat up, the snow in their hair glittering under the streetlight.

 

“Oh. Well in that case, I am honored.” Laf put on the jacket, zipping it all the way up. John rolled his eyes, and they continued walking.

 

They were getting closer to the dog, its barking growing louder as they walked. John absently wondered what the dog was so upset about.

 

“Your jacket is warm,” Laf said, which was about the closest thing to a compliment Laf ever gave. At least, to Hercules.

 

“And doesn’t fit you at all,” Hercules said, glancing over at Laf. “It’s, like, eight sizes too big.”

 

“That just makes it warmer.” Laf pulled the jacket tighter around themself. 

 

“Guys, if we turn right on Olivia we can take the bus the rest of the way back,” John said, and by the look in Laf’s eyes, immediately regretted it. 

 

“So you do  _ not _ wish to walk in the snow, after all!” Laf said triumphantly. John figured he had no response left besides rolling his eyes. The three of them did what John suggested, though. 

 

As they got to the end of the street, John thought it almost sounded like the barking was coming from the bus stop itself.

 

And then John could see around the corner and all of them had frozen because--

 

Because the dog was there, barking as loudly and desperately as a dog could. And next to it, in the snow, was the dark shape of a person.

 

“Guys?” Herc asked, almost hesitantly, the panic in his voice growing. “Guys do you--do you see that?”   
  


The scene was only just starting to make sense to John, the red in the snow finally computing as blood.

 

“We have to--they’re in the snow, it’s too cold--we’ve got to get them out,” Herc said, because that was how Herc was. He always responded when things went wrong, figured out what needed to happen next. John still didn’t think he could move.

 

Herc was lifting the--boy, someone small, they must have been younger than John and Herc and Laf-out of the snow, which seemed like a good idea, and suddenly John was able to unfreeze and so he pulled out his phone and began dialing nine one one. His freezing, shaking fingers could barely find the keys and it took him several tries. Finally, the phone was ringing.

 

Herc had put the boy down on the bus stop bench. The dog, thank god, hadn’t attacked him, had just nudged Herc along as though it somehow knew Herc was helping.

 

And just as someone on the other end of the line picked up, John recognized the kid lying on the bench.

 

It was hard to tell--someone had  _ hurt _ this kid, beaten him badly enough that he was barely recognizable--but it looked a hell of a lot like Alexander Hamilton.

 

“Is there an emergency?”

 

John wasn’t sure he could speak, but he needed to, needed to tell this person to send help  _ now _ . Finally, just as he was sure she would hang up, the words came.

 

“Ye-yes. Someone’s--someone’s been hurt really badly, we need--we’re on the corner of Olivia, by the bus stop. Please.”

 

And then there was a voice telling him they were sending an ambulance and asking for more information, and John tried to give it as he, Herc, Laf, and a dog tried to keep Alexander Hamilton from freezing to death in the snow.

 

* * * 

 

George was going to have a  _ word _ with the principal about meeting timing.

 

There was just simply no need to have a teachers meeting at midnight. None. George did understand that there was some sort of international call that needed to take place, but....

 

But he had been tasked with driving Charles Lee to the teachers meetings and being forced to sit in a car with Charles Lee at eleven forty five pm was cruel and unusual and wholly unbearable. George had volunteered to drive his fellow English teacher only after the school’s sustainability club guilted him into it.  _ Do it for the trees!  _ The club’s carpooling campaign had gone.

 

Well. At this point, George figured the trees owed him money.

 

Maybe it was worse today. It was definitely worse today. George wasn’t sure whether Lee was being more of an asshole than usual, or if it was just his stress over the Alexander Hamilton issue, or if it was the whole  _ driving to a meeting at midnight _ , but the desire to crash the car just to kill Lee was becoming irresistible. 

 

Fortunately, just as George’s hands were clenching into fists on the steering wheel, his phone rang. Keeping one hand on the wheel, he answered. Yeah, he knew that he had told Laf that being on the phone while driving was dangerous, but crashing the car would be totally fine, so long as it caused Lee to stop speaking.

 

“George?” It was John’s voice, sounding utterly terrified, and that was all it took to clear everything else out of George’s head. Possibilities for what could have happened started running through his mind, ranging from arrest to death. In the background, Lee finally shut up.

 

“Laf and Hercules and I are...We found--Some kid’s been hurt real bad, we think it’s Alexander Hamilton, he was passed out by the bus stop, he’s been--” John broke off to say something to someone on his end. Somehow, George managed to pull the car over to the side of the road.

 

“What’s going on?” Lee asked, oblivious. Numbly, George responded.

 

“Alexander Hamilton’s been hurt, my kids found him.”

 

“Really?” Lee asked, his voice intolerably unconcerned. “He seemed fine earlier.”

 

“When did you--” George stopped as John started talking again.

 

“We’re at the hospital, police are here, Alexander still hasn’t woken up.” George didn’t want to think about how badly Alexander must have been hurt. “No one will tell us what’s going on, but...Laf’s really upset, you know that they don’t like blood. The hospital people---They won’t tell us anything, not even whether Alexander is going to wake up.” And all the air leaves George’s lungs, because what if Alexander doesn’t wake up? 

 

“I--I’ve got to hang up, they want to talk to us.”

 

“I’m coming,” George says, mentally calculating the quickest route to the hospital. “I’ll be there in ten minutes. Tell--don’t worry. Tell Laf and Hercules not to worry, either. It’s going to be alright.” But the last part was a lie, because it seemed impossible that it would.

 

Lee, who had been waiting throughout the whole phone call, spoke up again. “He seemed fine earlier.”

 

“You saw him today?” George asked, a horrible explanation beginning to form in the back of his mind.

 

“Yeah, I went to his house, because he was skipping school--”

 

And George spun the steering wheel, pressing down the gas pedal slightly too soon. “No, no, no,  _ no _ …”

 

* * *

Thomas hadn’t been this scared in a long, long, time.

 

“We should go.” He spun around at the sound of James’s voice.

 

“What?”

 

“I just….it’s late. And I have a really bad feeling. There’s no way he’s ok.” 

 

“I’m coming with you guys.” Aaron’s voice floated up from the couch. The book was still in his hands; he had been staring at it for the past hour, but hadn’t turned a page. 

 

“No, you’re not,” Thomas and James said at the same time. It would have made Alexander laugh, them speaking in unison, and that only made everything feel more wrong.

 

James met Thomas’s eyes, a silent discussion about what to do.

 

“Alright, what about....” Thomas said, trying to create a solution for an unsolvable problem. “Ok, how about this: I’ll go. I’ll take my car, drive towards your house, drive around the neighborhood for a bit, see if Hamilton’s--if Alex is there, somewhere.” And he tried not to think about Alex collapsed somewhere outside his house in the snow. “If I don’t find him--” And this is the part Thomas doesn’t know, because there isn’t an answer. “I’ll call you guys, then...Then I guess we’ll call the police.”

 

“No.” It’s Aaron. “Don’t call them.” Thomas completely understood  it, understood why Aaron wouldn’t trust the police because he felt the same way. But he wasn’t sure what else he could do anymore.

 

“I’ll call you guys. Then I’ll come back here, and we’ll make a plan.”   
  


And it’s so, so far from perfect, but it will have to do.

 

* * *

 

By the time George pulled into the hospital parking lot, it was almost midnight. As he walked through the hospital doors, he noticed Lee for the first time since turning the car around.

 

“Why the hell are you still here?”

 

“On edge, much?” Lee asked lightly, and the urge to punch him increased. 

 

“Lee, my kids just found one of our students who has been injured so badly they’re not sure if he’s going to wake up and it is both of our faults. Yes, I’m on edge, and the only reason you aren’t is because you’re an asshole.” George lengthened his stride, and so did Lee. They arrived at the door to the emergency room waiting room. Lee opened it, which somehow annoyed George, and they both walked through.

 

The waiting room was mostly empty. There was the guy at the desk, an anxious-looking family of five, and Hercules, Lafayette, John, and for some reason, a brown dog lying at John’s feet. 

 

Hercules looked up when the door opened, and by the way he didn’t even bother to glare at Lee George knew how upset he was. Still, he greeted George tiredly, which caused John to start, as though he had been asleep. 

 

“Hi, Mr. Washington,” he said, because John always got more formal when he was tired. Laf didn’t say anything at all, continuing to stare down at the dog.

 

“Alexander was...There was so much blood,” Hercules says with a glance at Laf, and suddenly George understands. And he feels like an idiot, but more than that, like a bad parent for not thinking of this, of how Laf would react. Of what Laf would see in a kid covered in blood with no one else around. Because hell, if you didn’t know what had happened, it almost seemed like Alexander hadn’t planned on waking up.

 

Fuck, George wasn’t sure which was worse. What he was thinking or what Laf was.

 

Just as George was about to speak, to try and reassure Laf, another voice cut him off.

 

“I understand that this is upsetting, and I...wouldn’t want to be insensitive, but we should probably keep some perspective on this.” It was Lee. Of course it was Lee. “I’m just…I just want to make sure that we’re considering all aspects of this. We know that he’s a kid prone to fighting, and it doesn’t seem improbable to me that this was something like that.”

 

“And?” Hercules asked, the single syllable impossibly tense.

 

“Well, again, I wouldn’t want to be insensitive,  but we should keep in mind that these things happen. And a kid who’s too argumentative, who fights too much--I’m not suggesting it was his fault, of course not. But we could probably just let his family deal with it. I mean, has anyone even called his parents? I’m sure they’re worried sick, his brother as well,” Lee finished. George took a moment to try to figure out what the hell Lee was trying to say, and then the last thing Lee had said clicked.

 

“He has a brother?”

 

And then George was back in his car, foot on the gas pedal as he drove towards Alexander Hamilton’s house faster than the speed limit would allow.

 

* * *

 

Perhaps the last thing George expected to see at Alexander’s house was Thomas Jefferson. He was arguing with someone just out of sight to George, behind the doorway.

 

“Son, it’s midnight. I’m not sure what you’re doing on my property, but if you don’t leave, I will be forced to call the police.” The words came from behind the door, from someone who didn’t seem to have seen George yet. 

 

“Where the fuck is Alex?” 

 

The voice behind the door got louder. “Get away from my house.”

 

George felt himself break into a run, quickly covering the rest of the path and climbing the front steps as quickly as he could. The house, he noticed, was massive.

 

“Thomas, come away from there.” He tried his best to keep his voice calm, but Thomas spun around as though he had shouted.

 

“Mr. Washington? Why are you--Do you know where Alex is? Is he ok?” 

 

George couldn’t bring himself to tell Thomas that he didn’t know. That Alexander might not be, that he had been lying in the snow for so long he might not wake up.

 

“He’s in the hospital,” George said, and then looked up at the man in the doorway, his jaw clenching. “Where is Alexander’s younger brother?”

 

“Not in my house anymore.” The man looked at Thomas. “If the two of you don’t leave my property this  _ instant _ , I will call the police.”

 

Thomas opened his mouth, and almost all of George wanted to help him, to yell at this man, to burn the fucking house to the ground with him inside. But he also knew the man was serious about calling the police and knew that if that happened, it would no go well for him and Thomas.

 

“Thomas,” George said quietly, a warning. Than he looked back at the man. “I will leave as soon I find out where Aaron is.”

 

“You have no right to come here, in the middle of the night, and demand to see my children. Leave, or I call the police.”

 

“Mr. Washington, he’s at my place.” 

 

And as much as George hated this man, they needed to get out of here.

 

“Come on Thomas, let’s go.”

 

* * *

“Is he awake?”

 

“I don’t think so.”

 

“No, I think he is. Look.”

 

“He’s definitely awake.”

 

“Do you think we should get the nurse?”

 

“Yeah. I’ll go.”

 

There were footsteps, and then a door swung shut.

 

And then the door opened again, and someone was saying something again, and Alex’s head hurt so badly he could barely hear. But then someone was adjusting something near Alexander, and he could feel the room slipping away, and  _ no, he had to stay awake, he couldn’t just  _ leave _ again-- _ But when he tried to speak nothing came out and he was slipping away and that was  _ wrong _ , he was going to get hurt if he passed out now, it would be so much worse later--but there was nothing he could do, and suddenly everything was dark again.

 

* * *

 

“I’m not leaving.”   
  


“Well, you’re also not staying,” the nurse said, clearly at his wits end. To be fair, this argument had repeated itself at least seven times. “You are a  _ minor _ .  You can’t stay at the hospital without an adult, and the two adults here have no relation to Alexander Hamilton, so you  _ can not stay here _ .”

 

“I’m not fucking leaving, alright? He’ll wake up in a couple hours, and I’m not going anywhere.”

 

The nurse gave George a pleading look. “Can you--can you please explain to him that he can’t stay here overnight?”

 

“Aaron--” George started, although he doubted he would be any more successful than the nurse. Jesus, he had thought  _ Alexander _ was stubborn, but this kid…

 

“I’m not leaving,” Aaron stated again, crossing his arms.   
  


“Aaron, I know that this is--” Aaron glared at him with enough force that George felt he should have been knocked over. “Look, you have every right to be upset, but you heard the nurse, they can’t legally let you stay here.”

 

“Fine,” Aaron said. The nurse looked like he wasn’t sure he could believe his ears. “Then I can stay here illegally. I don’t  _ care _ , but I’m not going to fucking leave.”

 

The nurse looked like he might cry.

 

“Aaron,” James said quietly. “You aren’t going to win this one.”

 

And George could not believe it, but Aaron looked at him, and he slumped to the ground.

 

“Fine.”

 

The nurse gave a wary look of hope, as though he couldn’t believe that Aaron was giving in.

 

“Can someone--can someone drive me home?” Aaron asked, no emotion in his voice. “It’s a long walk back to my street from here.”

 

A moment passed, and then George felt like all the air had left his lungs. Thomas and James seemed to feel the same way, a look passing between them that said more than words ever could. Because it was late at night, or early in the morning, and none of them were thinking clearly, but they all knew what Aaron meant.

 

What he meant by  _ home _ .

 

And then a voice jolted George out of the moment, and he started. He had forgotten that there was anything else, that there was something besides Aaron and the nurse and James and Thomas, hadn’t thought about anything outside of that since his kids left to talk to the police officer. But they were in the hospital waiting room, and there were several other groups of people, as well as one person sitting directly behind them whom George had entirely forgotten about.

 

“Well, George, it looks like you have this under control. I think I might head out now, if that’s alright, but I can drop Aaron off on my way. It’s no trouble, really.” 

 

George  _ knew _ that Lee didn’t know what was going on. He understood that Lee didn’t understand, that Lee didn’t have any idea what he had just offered to do. But that didn’t change the feeling of utter hatred that hit George, welling up from somewhere he hadn’t known existed.

 

Just as he was about to open his mouth, James spoke, and George would later decide that this probably saved him from losing his job and possibly being arrested.

 

“Aaron will come home with Thomas and I.” James’s voice was level but determined. “You can go now. You’re not taking him  _ anywhere _ .”

 

Lee blinked, and quickly adopted a condescending look. “You have to send him home,” he said slowly, as though speaking to someone who didn’t quite understand the words. “You can’t not bring a thirteen year old boy home. I understand that things may be difficult for you, but surely you must understand this.”

 

“Look, Mr. Lee, it’s one in the morning and we’re all exhausted and please could you just leave and let us handle this?” Thomas asked. Lee didn’t pay any attention, continuing to look as though he had been given a mission. He turned to George.

 

“You can’t possibly allow this! This is irresponsible, unsafe, it’s absolutely--”

 

“I’m not going  _ anywhere _ with you.” Aaron’s voice was low. “You are the entire fucking reason my brother is here. We would all be  _ asleep  _ if it weren’t for you. So please, fuck  _ off _ and let us deal with this.”

 

Lee looked both confused and affronted, and George realized that he still had no idea what was going on. George took it as his cue to jump in.

 

“Charles, really, I have this under control. You’ve been saying that these kids were my responsibility for years, remember?” George said, his voice dry on the last part. “Let me handle it. You can head out.”

 

“Alright,” Lee said, picking up his bag. “Good...luck, with this, I guess.” The waiting room door swung shut behind him.

 

James and Thomas shared another look. “What an--”

 

“Asshole, I know,” George agreed. Both of them looked at him, surprised. “What? He’s awful, always has been.”   
  
Thomas looked pleased, and turned to Aaron. “So, you ready to go? I’ll make mac and cheese again.”

 

“Guys, I really can’t let you--” George started, then stopped when three sets of eyes turned towards him. “Look, I’m an approved foster parent, I can call up your social worker and arrange for you to stay at my place for the night. It’s not great, but it’s better than having two high schoolers deal with this.”

 

There was a pause. “Sir, Mr Washington, can I talk to you outside for a second?”

 

George followed Thomas out of the room. Once the door had swung shut behind them, Thomas turned to George, and took a deep breath.

 

“Sir, Mr. Washington, it’s...super helpful that you’re here, and I get that there are rules you have to follow, that you can’t just let us---I mean--look, it’s just that Aaron’s still scared of  _ me.  _ James’s the only one who can really get through to him, at least the only one who’s currently conscious.”  Thomas looked at George as though expecting him to understand, but it was two in the morning and George was just completely lost. Thomas sighed. “Look, man, he’s fucking terrified of you. It’s not anything you did, hell, it’s got nothing to do with you, but he’s also a thirteen year old kid who’s been through hell and it’s almost two in the morning. They both have some objection to calling their social worker, so maybe just wait until morning with that one? Until--until Alex wakes up.”

 

George looked at Thomas for a moment. “You’re proposing that Alexander Hamilton’s thirteen year old foster brother stay at your house until Alexander wakes up.”

 

“Well, yeah.”

 

The door to the waiting room swung open as a man and a woman walked out. Both Thomas and George watched them leave.

 

“Thomas, what the hell are your parents going to think?”

 

Thomas watched the couple walked away, the man’s arm around the woman’s waist. “They won’t notice. They’re not very good at...noticing things.”

 

And had it not been two in the morning, George might have wondered if by  _ noticing things _ Thomas had meant  _ caring _ .

 

But it was too late, or too early, and so the two of them walked back into the waiting room. Thomas and James left with Aaron, George had another fight with the hospital attendant about the dog (Which  _ absolutely could not _ stay at the hospital, they didn’t care that the only alternative was letting the dog go on the streets, they could  _ not _ let it stay) and then George, Hercules, John, Laf, and a brown, dirty dog that likely had all kinds of diseases went back to George’s house.

 

* * *

 

At six in the morning, John decided to give up on sleep. Careful not to wake Laf and Hercules, he opened the door and walked downstairs.

 

John couldn’t say for sure when he had become more comfortable in Laf’s house then his own, but all he knew was that walking into Laf’s kitchen alone didn’t feel weird at all. Neither did helping himself to coffee from the the machine, or setting the mug of coffee back down so that he could climb up and sit on the countertop next to the stove. And talking to George while George baked scones at six in the morning felt--normal. Like something he’d always done.

 

He wasn’t sure why. There was something about George that just made people fit in. John supposed that was a good quality for a teacher.

 

Another good quality for a teacher (or person in general) was the tendency to bake when worried. George’s consistent response to anything going wrong was to take out the flour, sugar, and baking powder and start mixing. 

 

John, Hercules, and Laf had benefited enormously from this habit.

 

“You doing ok?” George asked, still bent over the recipe. John made a noncommittal gesture, knowing George couldn’t see him.

 

“Yeah, I guess.”

 

George straightened out and began measuring out sugar. John sipped his coffee.

 

“Are the others still asleep?” 

 

“Yeah,” John said again. “They--are lucky.”

 

“It would be nice not to have to think right now,” George agreed. 

 

There was a pause as George cracked two eggs into the bowl.

 

“I just...How did we not do anything?” John blurted out. He didn’t know why it came to him then, but suddenly he needed to say it. He kicked his feet into the cabinet below him. “I mean, it was obvious something was wrong and I didn’t even--didn’t even know him that well. I barely knew him, and I still could see something was wrong. I should have  _ done _ something.”

 

“It’s not over for him,” George said, his voice darker than John had heard it. “There’s still plenty of time to do something. He’s sure as hell going to need it.” John waited. George wasn’t good at leaving vague comments unexplained, and the easiest way to get an explanation was to wait. “And...shit, kid, it wasn’t your responsibility. It was mine. And I didn’t do a damn thing.”

 

John thought about that for a moment. He took another sip of coffee.

 

“We all could have done more,” he said finally, and George looked up from the bowl. “I mean--right? I could have noticed, you could have done something, Alexander himself could have--I don’t know, but there was more we all could have done and we just have to remember that next time, right?”

 

George looked at him for a moment. “You’re really some kid, you know that?”

 

“Nah, I stole that from John Green or something. ‘Let the guilt show you what to do next time’ or something like that. Yeah, it’s probably John Green.”

 

* * *

Alexander was  _ good _ at waking up.

 

Waking up in odd places had always reminded Alex of those logic puzzles they used to hand out in middle school math, on the days when teachers wanted to feel productive but didn’t want to teach. They gave you a little bit of information, and you had that to figure everything else out. Alex had always been  _ really good _ at those. They were just fun.

 

And waking up was a little bit like that. He would know that he was in a car, that they were on a highway with no visible landmarks, that his social worker was in the front seat, and Alex had to figure out the rest.  _ If Dracula arrived at the Halloween party after Santa Claus, and he didn’t bring brownies, then when did Santa Claus arrive?  _ It was the same idea, just...higher stakes. Or maybe lower stakes, because unlike seventh grade math, no one gave a fuck whether Alex figured it out or not. But it did matter to Alex, mattered a hell of a lot more than a good grade ever had. He needed to know where he was, needed to know how he had gotten there and why he wasn’t in the place he had last passed out in.

 

The stuff he knew: He was in a hospital. White walls, white sheets, the IV next to his bed--that one wasn’t particularly hard to figure out. It was dark outside the window, which meant it wasn’t daytime. There was no clock in the room. HIs ribs hurt, but his back hurt more, and he decided that how he got hurt was information he would have to do without. (It wasn’t that he didn’t  _ know _ , he wasn’t an idiot, he would just rather not think about it.) He was…

 

_ Write everything down,  _ Mr Deacon had said. Even the obvious stuff. That was just how one did logic puzzles.

 

Everything he knew: He was Alexander Hamilton. He had last been in a town called Yorktown. He was injured quite badly, and something was wrong with his fingers. He was on some amount of painkillers, but not enough to make thinking impossible. Also, incidentally, not enough to do what they were supposed to do. It was quite cold in this town. No, cold in the town he had last been in. He didn’t know if he was still there. He must have passed out outdoors; had he not left the house, he would not be here. Someone must have found him, but they weren’t in the room now. His hospital room was empty. There was no reason for him to not be in Yorktown anymore, no reason for anyone to have moved him, so he was likely still there.

 

Things he still needed to figure out: Where Aaron was, how he had gotten from passed-out-on-a-street-corner to a hospital, whether or not his foster parents knew he was here. Where he was going to go next.

 

What was going to happen now.

 

Whether everything was going to fall apart now, whether this would be as bad as he had imagined it would be, or whether he would go back to living the way he had been before. Whether he wanted to go back, to have no one question how he got hurt, to have life continue in the same way it had been before.

 

Well. That seemed unfair. That was like asking the logic puzzle why your girlfriend broke up with you. Some stuff, Alex would have to figure out on his own.

 

First, he needed to figure where the hell Aaron was.

 

* * *

 

George arrived at the hospital at the same time as Alexander’s social worker. 

 

Robert Micheals was a large man with a well-meaning smile that pissed George off. George blamed the man almost as much as he blamed himself, and thought that Micheals had no business smiling like that when Alexander had almost been killed. But Micheals did talk the nurse into letting George come talk to Alex with him, so George couldn’t entirely hate him.

 

The first words George heard Alexander say since the kid had passed out on street corner beaten half to death were a muffled “Go away,” spoken mostly into a pillow.

 

George would have assumed the words were directed at him if Micheals hadn’t immediately responded with. “Come on, Alexander, it’s not so bad.”

 

Alexander’s voice was still muffled from the pillow. “Yeah, it is. It’s actually really fucking bad.”

 

“Alexander--” Micheals said with a well-meaning sigh. “Can you sit up so we can talk about this like adults?”

 

Alex lifted his face out of the pillow. “I’m not an adult. I’m seventeen.” As if to illustrate his point, he dropped his head back into the pillow. “Also, I’m on like a lot of drugs right now, and I think I might cry if you don’t leave,” he said, voice muffled again. “George? I don’t really know why you’re here, but will you make him leave?”

 

“Alexander, I really need you to be mature about this,” Micheals said, giving George a sympathetic smile that George didn’t return.

 

And George thought Alexander must not have been quite as out of it as he had been acting, because he sat up and glared at his social worker.

 

“What the hell do you want me to be mature about? What just happened to me? That it’s happened before? That you’re planning on sending Aaron back there until everything gets ‘figured out’? Yeah, I’ll stick to being immature about this one. You can fuck us over without my help.”

There was a hell of a lot of anger in Alexander’s voice, and George was torn between feeling that he should get between the two of them and that he stay as far away as possible.

 

Being a teacher screwed with your self-preservation instinct. George stepped out of the doorway.

 

“Guys, look, I know I’ve got no place here, but is there anything I can do? This...really doesn’t seem to be going well.”

 

Micheals gave him a look of gratitude, and George found that he didn’t particularly want it. This must have been why Micheals had brought George in the first place. Alexander, on the other hand, completely deflated. 

 

“You’re right. I’m sorry,” he said, his voice low and his shoulders slumped. “It’s not--it’s not up to me. I’ll go wherever I have to, just please don’t send Aaron back without me.”

 

Micheals looked at George again, but this time his expression was impressed, and George understood that this was unusual. That it generally was not this easy to get Alexander to agree to something. Then again, he had already known that.

 

Since Micheals didn’t seem to feel the need to say something, and Alexander was still looking like he had just broken, it appeared to be up to George to speak. 

 

“Alexander, no one’s talking about sending Aaron  _ back _ , that’s not even an, an...” George faltered when he saw Micheals’ expression. “...an option, what the  _ fuck _ ?”

 

Micheals looked somewhere between taken aback and lost. “It’s only for a few days, just until we figure everything else out, it’s not...a big deal, I mean I understand why you’re concerned but…” He trailed off. 

 

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. Are you even--did you even go to school? Do you  _ know _ how to do your job, or do you just play around with people’s lives and pick whatever option is easiest for you? Or do you not know why Alexander is in the hospital. Is that it, you don’t know how he got hurt?”

 

Micheals didn’t say anything, just looked a little bit terrified, and sometimes George forgot that that tended to happen when he got angry. But Alexander was sitting up, and although he wasn’t visibly smiling, George could see it behind his eyes, and suddenly everything was worth it. Because Alexander didn’t look broken anymore.

 

“I--I need to go talk to--” Micheals almost ran out of the room. Alexander looked at George.

 

“Is this real? Am I asleep, or is this actually happening?” And the smile behind Alexander’s eyes had been replaced with something else. On anyone else, George would have called it hope, but on Alexander it seemed more like caution, like fear. Like Alexander couldn’t even let himself believe that something good had happened because he was too scared it would be taken away.

 

“You mean, did I just swear at your social worker and scare him out of the room?” George asked, feeling suddenly guilty. He looked down at the ground. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that. I just--”

 

“No, it’s fine,” Alexander said, still staring at George a little too intently.  “It’s just that--” he looked embarrassed. “No one does that,” he finished quietly.

 

“What, yell at people who they have no business with?” George asked, still regretting it sharply. He had just blown any chance he had of trying to help Micheals find Alexander a place to stay, not to mention had likely made it worse for Alexander, the next time the kid would have to deal with Micheals. And he couldn’t help but think about the memories Alexander must have, the things he must have associated with people behaving like George just had, and damn it, he really shouldn’t have done that.

 

“No,” Alex said. “No one--” he looked down at hands, then back up, looking sheepish. “People don’t usually--do that. Do something because they think it might help me. Thanks.” And then, because Alexander hated awkwardness, he moved right on into questions. “So why are you here? Not like, in a bad way, just how do you even know I’m here? Actually, why am I here? I know I passed out outside, and someone must have found me and brought me here, and they must have been someone who recognized me because otherwise he,” Alexander gestured to the door Micheals had just walked through. “Wouldn’t be here. So did you find me? How? I mean, it was late, wasn’t it?”

 

George tried to sift through the flurry of words for something he could answer. “How did you..get all of that? How much do you remember?”

 

Alexander gave a little half-shrug. “I mean, I remember, like...I don’t really know. The last concrete thing is Lee, I think. He came by my house to talk to--yeah. And then…” Alexander trailed off. “And then some other shit happened, and I was outside, and then I guess--” Suddenly Alexander sat up. “Was there a dog?” He demanded.

 

“What?” George asked, taken aback. 

 

“A dog,” Alexander said impatiently. “Was there a dog?”   
  


It took George a moment. “Yes!” He cleared his throat. “I mean, yes. There was. It’s at my house now. Is it yours?” He says the last part hopefully.

 

“No,” Alexander said, and then went back to questions. George tried not to look as lost as he felt. “So anyway, what happened after that? Do you know where Aaron is?”

 

He was looking at George expectantly, as though there was actually the possibility that George was keeping up with him.  “Aaron? My little brother? Probably flipped the fuck out when I got here? Is he still with Thomas and James?”   
  


“Yeah,” George said. “Yeah, he’s at Thomas’s house, although they’ll probably be back here soon. He really did not want to leave last night, the nurse he was yelling at almost cried.”

 

Alexander looked slightly pleased. “Yeah, that’s Aaron. Micheals will probably be back soon to figure out where he’s going to stay. Do you know when they’ll get here?”

 

“I have no idea. Probably soon.” A nurse came in, bustling around the room, and it occurred to George that this bouncy, curious personality Alexander was showing him probably had nothing to do with the way Alexander was feeling. If he was right, the kid was a seriously good actor, and George was pretty sure he  _ was _ right. There was just no way that anyone could go through what Alexander had just gone through and still be...like this.

 

“Alexander, are you all right?” George asked, instantly knowing that was the wrong thing to say. Alexander shrugged.

 

“I mean, yes? No? Like if I was actually all right I probably wouldn’t be in the hospital on a half a dozen different drugs but mostly I’m good.”   
  


Maybe that was it, the painkillers the doctors had put Alexander on. Still, George couldn’t shake the feeling that this wasn’t  _ normal _ , that this was just a front. That everything George was feeling--hopeful that it seemed like the kid would be ok, willing to trust Alexander’s judgement, just the thought that Alexander seemed  _ alright _ \--Alexander was trying to make George think that. Which was unsettling because how the hell was George supposed to help if he didn’t even know what was real?

 

“So, um,” Alexander said, looking around the room. “Why  _ are _ you here? I mean, I’m not trying to be rude or anything,” he added quickly. “But, like. Why?”

 

And maybe that was exactly it, George thought. Why  _ was _ he there? Why was he trying to help out this kid he barely even knew, just one of his students, someone to whom he didn’t have any particular responsibility? Why was he the one who was here, why not someone else?

 

Well. There wasn’t anyone else. And that was part of it, George knew. He was here partly because no one else was, because Micheals was an ass and there was no one else coming, no one except for Aaron, who needed someone as badly as Alexander did. 

 

But that wasn’t all of it. Because while Alexander wasn’t just a kid George barely knew, wasn’t just one of his students, that still wasn’t it. And it wasn’t just because Thomas had come to  _ him _ , or because of that detention which George still didn’t want to think about, or because of any of the other times George had dropped the ball and not  _ helped _ , not  _ done _ something. 

 

Maybe the rest of it was that this was simply what one  _ did _ . That this was what teachers did, that this was what  _ George _ did. Maybe it was the same reason he had decided Laf would come live with him, the reason that John spent so many nights at there house when he didn’t want to go home. Maybe it was why Thomas had come to him in the first place, not because it was his fault but because he could help. Because sometimes there isn’t a choice, whether to help someone or not. Sometimes, you just  _ do _ .

 

George had no idea how to put that--any of it--into words. Fortunately, Micheals walked back in, and with a wary glance at George, he began talking again. George could see Alexander change, and he realized he was completely right about Alexander putting up a front. He was broadcasting something else entirely now which seemed to have the singular goal of pissing Micheals off. It was working. This time, though George didn’t say anything, but when he caught Alexander’s eye, and for a moment, the two of them were laughing at Micheals together, it felt like enough. Or at least, something.

 

A start, maybe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Sorry I made you read that. It hurt me to read, and I had to read it SO MANY FUCKING TIMES while editing and I hated it every single one because it's just BAD. Like generally when fic hurts to read it's because it is sad, not because it FUCKING SUCKS. If this chapter were a person it would be that friend who takes literally the same classes as everyone else but always goes on about how they signed up for such hard classes because they're such a hard worker and a overachiever.  
> Sorry. Got sidetracked. God these notes just prove that I am Literally Incapable of shutting the fuck up. BUT if you come find me on tumblr you can hear me not shut up EVEN MORE. (Also I Was Not Kidding when I said I didn't know how to use tumblr I only just figured out where the reblog button is I am following five people and have zero(0) followers please send help how do I like a post I'm hymnforthehymnless I think but I'm still not entirely sure what my username is)  
> (Also also also I just got addicted to avengers fic ayyyyyyyy)

**Author's Note:**

> Sources cited:  
> https://www.helpguide.org/articles/ptsd-trauma/post-traumatic-stress-disorder.htm  
> http://www.ptsd.va.gov/public/PTSD-overview/basics/what-is-ptsd.asp


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